[Elecraft] Farnsworth and keyer memory loading (K3 Wishlist)

[Ian White GM3SEK]

Vic Rosenthal wrote:
>Ken_ke2n wrote:
>> I do not want to bring up the pro's and con's of Farnsworth CW (discussed in
>> many many posts in the elecraft forum, but not specifically in the K3 area).
>>  I would just mention that this is a pretty standard technique on 
>>EME, to
>> deal with libration fading.
>>  I was quite frustated to have to send by hand, or use an external 
>>keyer with
>> the K3, this weekend.
>>  Has somebody raised this to a wish list item?
>
>I would not like to see this added to the  K3. It's quite specialized,
>and I'm sure there would have to be a way to adjust the spacing. Not
>everything has to be built into the radio -- that's why there are
>external keyers, etc.
>

It's a well known feature of Morse Code that certain patterns of letters 
are more readable when sent with a small amount of extra spacing. Most 
operators do this automatically (and often unconsciously) when keying by 
hand, and in common with most other electronic keyers the K3 allows 
this.

(Declaration of personal interest: one of those patterns is "SEK".)

I believe Ken's main point was that when code is stored in a K3 memory, 
all the subtle articulation of hand sending is destroyed.  On playback, 
any extended spacing is forced down to a standard letter space.

This is a known problem, but fortunately there is also a quick fix: a 
simple prosign that inserts an extra half-letter-space when played back 
from memory. Obviously it isn't perfect - which is why some keyers like 
the Microkeyer allow much finer adjustment - but experience with keying 
macros in N1MMlogger and Writelog shows that the simple 
half-letter-space is a very good first step.



-- 

73 from Ian GM3SEK