[Elecraft] Hearing CW - Fundamental Keying Waveform?

[Darrell Bellerive]

Wow, I never thought my question would spur on such a discussion!

So, if I understand correctly we have three components in the transmitted CW 
signal that affect what we hear on our receivers:
1) The carrier and it's stability in frequency,
2) the actual keying on and off of the carrier, and
3) the shape of the leading and trailing edge of the keying.

Also, as the receive bandwidth in narrowed, the result is a "softer" sound to 
the keying. Our hearing may also detect the differences in the audio 
frequency component distribution present between the dots and dashes 
themselves. In other words, dots may sound harder than dashes.

So, assuming that the above transmit parameters are nominal for the amateur 
service, can the IF and AF filters in the receiver be adjusted to enhance or 
reduce the effects of the shape of the keying waveform? As stated above, the 
width of the bandwidth determines the softness, but what about shifting the 
bandwidth above or below the carrier beatnote? What about changing the slope 
or flatness of the bandwidth?

I've always set my K2 filters so that the carrier beatnote is in the center of 
the the bandpass. If the bandpass is offset so that the carrier beatnote is 
at either the high or low end of the bandpass, yet still within the flat part 
of the bandwidth, what will be the effect on the way we hear the CW? Will we 
hear a harder note for the same bandwidth?

Darrell   VA7TO   K2#5093


On September 19, 2006 03:07 pm, Darrell Bellerive wrote:
> What is meant by "the fundamental keying waveform"?
-- 
Darrell Bellerive
Amateur Radio Stations VA7TO and VE7CLA
Grand Forks, British Columbia, Canada