[Elecraft] [K2] Keyer anomaly/Learning the code

[Fred Jensen]

a-nom-a-ly [uh-NOM-uh-lee n.] A term used extensively by NASA to 
describe an unplanned event, occurrence, or situation, regardless of its 
severity or impact.  [e.g. When a minor indicator in the spaceship 
fails, or when the rocket lands pointy end first in the desert outside 
Phoenix, NASA will term both "an anomaly"]

My K2 [#4398] keying rarely, but sometimes, seems to have a momentary 
timing glitch.  I thought at first it might just be me, so I tried 
filling a memory with text and sending it over and over, and it occurs 
then too.  It generally comes off to me like a very slight lengthening 
of the space between a dash and the next dot.  It's in no way a problem, 
I'm just curious if anyone else notices it.  I don't ever recall hearing 
it on my KX1, but I use the K2 way more than the KX1.  I think the 
"keyer" in the K2 is in the firmware.  If so, maybe something distracts 
the MCU every now and then.

Re learning the code:  I don't think Farnsworth had been invented when I 
learned the code and a high school senior year working as a relief op 
for a coastal marine station pretty well burned the I'ntl Morse code 
into my brain from some incredibly bad fists and signals.  However, I've 
heard good reports with the method, and as a VE some years ago, I found 
it a bit hard to copy "real" non-Farnsworth 5WPM code in my head.  By 
the time the letter was concluding, I forgot how it had started.

I drive about 300 miles each year to visit my college roommate for a few 
days, and I've started using MorseGen to create CD's from an e-book on 
the Internet and then listen to it on the drive.  Might be a good way to 
increase code speed for beginners since W1AW code practice is in the 
middle of weekdays.  MorseGen will do Farnsworth with adjustable parameters.

Incidentally, I don't think Morse classes as a "language," it's much 
more like an "alphabet in sound."

73,

Fred K6DGW
- Northern California Contest Club
- CU in the 2008 Cal QSO Party  4-5 Oct 08
- www.cqp.org

"Human memory storage does not decline with age ... it's the memory 
retrieval that does."