[Elecraft] Kent Single Lever Paddles

Sun Aug 31 20:31:01 EDT 2008

Steve,

You want Ultimatic mode.  It makes a dual lever paddle operate almost 
like a single lever. To quote from the K1EL K12 keyer manual, "In 
Ultimatic mode when both paddles are pressed the keyer will send a 
continuous stream of whichever paddle was last pressed."  That makes the 
hand motions identical to using a single lever paddle.

The small K1EL keyers that support Ultimatic keying are a must for me 
because it is not built-in to any transceiver internal keyer as far as I 
know.

73,
Don W3FPR

n4lq wrote:
> It's not the single vs. dual lever issue that bothers these guys. It's 
> the iambic mode, a or b. Mode B has been the standard since the early 
> 70's. TenTec came out with their KR-40 which is mode b and ever since 
> then mode A has been a step child. All JA rigs use mode B now.
> Basically, mode B has enough brains to know if you held in a lever 
> long enough to produce the last element without actually starting to 
> send it. People who learned on mode B, trying to send the letter C on 
> a mode A machine will end up sending the letter K. The last dit is 
> dropped because it wants you to hold in the dit button until that dit 
> has started to form. Mode A people who try to send C end up sending KA 
> _._._ because they hold the dit lever in too long. Both modes are 
> iambic since holding in both levers results in alternate dits and 
> dahs. It's just a matter of when to let go!
> A single lever paddle works equally well with either mode. In fact 
> when you consider the entire alphabet, less finger movement is 
> required with the single lever paddle. This came as a shock to me. 
> Check the letter C. On a single lever we swing left, right, left, 
> right. That's 4 movements. With duals, we (push left and hold), (push 
> right and hold), (release left), (release right) for letter C. So we 
> have the same number of movements with either paddle. Now let's do A. 
> With single lever we swing left, swing right, release. 3 moves. With 
> duals, we push left and hold, push right, release left, release right. 
> 4 moves! It all happens so fast that you don't realize you are doing it.
> The Kent single lever paddle is a precision device. I prefer a wider 
> finger piece over the thin paddle Kent uses however.
> The K3 works well with either single or duals. It doesn't know the 
> difference.
> Steve Ellington
> N4LQ at insightbb.com
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "WILLIS COOKE" <wrcooke at flash.net>
> To: "Jack Regan" <ae6gc at sbcglobal.net>; <elecraft at mailman.qth.net>
> Sent: Sunday, August 31, 2008 6:16 PM
> Subject: Re: [Elecraft] Kent Single Lever Paddles
>
>
>> Why do you need special interface for a single lever paddle?  It 
>> works the same as an Iambic paddle except that you can't close both 
>> contacts at once.
>>
>> Willis 'Cookie' Cooke
>> K5EWJ
>>
>>
>> --- On Sun, 8/31/08, Jack Regan <ae6gc at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>>
>>> From: Jack Regan <ae6gc at sbcglobal.net>
>>> Subject: [Elecraft] Kent Single Lever Paddles
>>> To: elecraft at mailman.qth.net
>>> Date: Sunday, August 31, 2008, 3:10 PM
>>> Last week I asked K3 Support if single lever paddle support
>>> was on the to
>>> "to do" list.  Gary Surrency responded that it
>>> was not but would be
>>> considered.
>>>
>>> within days the answer came back that it would not be
>>> supported due to the
>>> small number of users affected.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> At first I was a little annoyed but now I am all right with
>>> that decision
>>> because I have found that I can in fact use my Kent paddle
>>> with a slap and
>>> dash technique with the K3 internal keyer just the way it
>>> is.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> 1.       I changed my weighting to 1.25 and selected MODE
>>> A.
>>>
>>> 2.       I used the TEXT DECODE function to get feedback.
>>>
>>> 3.       I made sure I was consistently as fast as possible
>>> with my keying
>>> of elements within a character when switching from dot(s)
>>> to dash(es).
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> This technique "cured" my problem of things like
>>> CQ being seen NNMET!!!!
>>>
>>> Using the TEXT DECODE function also helped with getting rid
>>> of unwanted
>>> Farnsworth spacing between characters.  The better I get at
>>> hearing CW the
>>> more annoying it becomes.  It also makes sending a more
>>> natural rhythm.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> BTW, before I worked this method out I hooked up my
>>> microHam CW Keyer and
>>> used it and it worked FB with no effort on my part but I
>>> resented having an
>>> extra box and extra cables on my desk!  In an attempt to
>>> clean up my station
>>> I went back to using the K3 keyer and worked things out!
>>> Not only did I get
>>> rid of the external keyer and cables but now the Kent
>>> single lever paddle is
>>> plugged into the paddle jack and so TEXT DECODE as well as
>>> TERMINAL mode in
>>> the K3 Utility both work on send and receive.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Jack AE6GC, K3 1433, KX1 1403
>>>
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