[Elecraft] keying ration control

[Wes Stewart]

--- On Fri, 4/17/09, Steve Ellington <n4lq at carolina.rr.com> wrote:
[snip]

 The best antenna for CW is a Windom. The dits and dahs
> automatically 
> flow to the appropriate side of the feedpoint which insures
> proper 
> transmission ratio. Just be certain your Windom is fed at
> the 1/3 point. If 
> both receiving and transmitting stations are using Windoms,
> fading is 
> virtually eliminated. 

Only true if the two antennas are parallel to each other with the respective side lengths matched.  Otherwise there will be cross-polarization loss, which in theory is infinite, but in practice can be 20 dB or more.

In this case I use the same solution that was used by old Western Union telegraphers.  This is a "Pole Changing" key that inverts the characters, so dots became character spaces and dashes became letter spaces, and vice versa.

If both stations are in the same hemisphere, the receiving operator will have to stand on his head if he's copying by ear, but modern decoding software can handle this nicely.  (Perhaps this option can be "put on the list" at Elecraft.) If the stations are located in opposite hemispheres, this is unnecessary.

My key, was made by J.H.Bunnell and given to me when I was a kid, by a guy who had actually used it at W.U. 

http://chss.montclair.edu/~pererat/1458.jpg (Mine is in much better shape)

What a marriage; a 20th Century ham keying a 21st Century radio with a 19th Century key and technology.

Wes Stewart  N7WS