[Elecraft] K2 CW speed

[Bill Coleman]

On Feb 22, 2005, at 1:16 PM, Andrew Moore wrote:

>> Here's my question - what person can copy 100 wpm? Only a handful of
>> people in the world can copy 60 wpm!
>
> I'd guess it's a larger group than you might think -- though I'd agree
> those folks are few and far between.  I've run into a handful than can
> copy 100, and I remember about 10 years ago I was in disbelief when a
> guy on a 2m repeater told me he could do over 100, so I put him on the
> spot and cranked up my computer's CW speed to 100, asked him a question
> in CW over the repeater, and he answered.  Holy cow.

Color me skeptical. I wonder if it is a "mind reading" trick. I wonder 
how accurate a computer sending CW would be at 100 wpm -- or how well 
it would sound passing through a repeater.

The highest official CW speed was about 74 wpm, a record that was set 
decades ago and never overturned. If there's so many people who can 
copy north of 60 wpm, why has this record never been broken?

>> The bottom line -- if you are looking to run a 100 wpm data link on HF
>
> Nope, this is for copy in the head.  For some reason when I listen to
> folks QSO at 60 or 70 or higher, it just gets me really motivated, and
> all the enjoyment I experienced when I started fiddling with radios
> comes right back again

Where are these 60 wpm and higher operators? The highest speed CW I 
hear is just north of 40 wpm -- during contests.

I knew a couple of blind hams who ran the WV Novice Net almost three 
decades ago. They'd plug along at 5 wpm, close the net, then crank 
their keyboards to 50 wpm and have a QSO right there. But that's 50 
wpm, not 70.

> You bring up a good point about a firmware PTT
> tweak -- it doesn't sound like a horribly complicated thing to
> implement, but then again, I don't know anything about the K2's
> firmware.

It's something that's been brought up often enough by contesters. 
Whenever the next firmware revision comes out, it's something to 
anticipate.

> I wonder if one could just hack the hardware to somehow keep TX 
> engaged,
> even if it means manually throwing a switch -- equivalent to the PTT
> method but instead going right to the hardware.  After all, we have the
> schematics (er, or I will once I order my new K2! :)

There is a modification to do this, implementing CW PTT: 
<http://www.qsl.net/w3fpr/ptt_input_for_the_elecraft_k2.htm>

Bill Coleman, AA4LR, PP-ASEL        Mail: aa4lr at arrl.net
Quote: "Not within a thousand years will man ever fly!"
             -- Wilbur Wright, 1901