[Elecraft] Squeeze Keyer for K2, K3 ?

[Don Wilhelm]

Alan,

That places you in my chronological age range - yes, I have my 50 year 
pin from ARRL too!

I believe you are referring to "Ultimatic" keying - the paddle that was 
last operated is the one that takes precedence - none of the "idiotic" 
alternating dots and dashes (which to me is confusing).
Yes, I have tried to use Iambic, and have never been successful - I 
resort to
'slap keying' and/or a single lever paddle.  Ultimatic was the first 
keying method introduced with the Ultimatic Keyer (a vacuum tube 
design), and it is a puzzle to me why it has not been continued - 
perhaps the Curtis chip popularization of Iambic ruined the best keying 
method available - not to mention the adoption of the Iambic B mode 
which adds an opposite element at the end of a character - initially 
that was a mistake by the Curtic designers. but they successfully sold 
it as an "enhancement".

There is a cure.  Take a look at the K12 keyer by K1EL which supports 
Ultimatic mode.  Alternately, there was a fellow on the Elecaft 
reflector (about 6 months ago - maybe longer, my memory gets compressed 
with age) who developed both a logic gate and a pic implementation of an 
Ultimastic to Iambic converter.  I have the parts on a perfboard for 
that, but have not yet finished it.  Look in the archives because I have 
forgotten who it was that produced the design.

BTW - I have lobbied Elecraft for inclusion of Ultimatic keying support 
for the K2 and the K3, but all I have gotten so far is a "maybe" - I 
guess Wayne is occupied with more important things to do than support us 
few "old farts" who remember and liked the Ultimatic keyer".

73,
Don W3FPR

Alan D. Wilcox wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Fifty years ago I designed and built a tube keyer to replace my 
> Vibroplex. Then a transistor keyer. All this before the iambic keyers 
> came along ...
>
> Left paddle = dots
> Right = dashes
> Squeeze both paddles = dashes only.
>
> The technique I developed was to
> 1. Always squeeze _both_ keys for dashes; if I was a bit late getting 
> the dash paddle closed, the logic turned the dot into a dash (as long as 
> the dot hadn't finished, of course.)
> 2. If dots followed dashes, just simply let loose of the right paddle.
> 3. A string of dots would turn into dashes simply by squeezing both 
> paddles together.
>
> I could send good CW at fairly-respectable speeds, and was happy. For 
> decades ... until I got the K2 and the K3.
>
> Then I tried to get the hang of iambic keying, and the best I can do is 
> slap-keying or stagger along at 10 wpm or slower iambic.
>
> Questions:
> 1. Is there a way to kludge the K2 or K3 keying logic for squeeze keying?
> 2. Does anyone make a keyer with my logic? WHO? All I've ever seen are 
> iambic.
> 3. If neither, and I wind up building my new keyer myself, is this 
> something anybody else would want?
>
> Cheers,
> Alan
>
> Alan D. Wilcox, W3DVX (K2-5373, K3-40)
> 570-321-1516
> http://WilcoxEngineering.com
> Williamsport, PA 17701 
>
>