[Elecraft] Keyer weighting

[Fred Jensen]

Hmmm ... just when I thought I understood everything. :-)

A number of years ago I built a keyer, can't remember if it was the K1EL 
chip or not and I don't have it anymore.  USB hadn't been invented.  It 
suffered from what I decided was a design defect in that it offered 2 
dah-dit ratios.  3:1 was all I ever used, I think the other choice was 
4:1 and it really sounded bad.  I used it with a TS-830S.

I also noticed that while the side-tone from the keyer sounded OK, 
listening off the air seemed to have a "clipped" sound with dits and 
dahs both shorter than I though was right.  That was a need for Key 
Compensation?  I assumed the the -830 keying circuit just wasn't keying 
up instantly.

I now have a USB Winkey.  I use it only with N1MM, don't even have a 
paddle plugged in, I use the K3 keyer with the paddle.  CW WGHT=1.10 and 
CW QRQ is OFF.  1.10 sounded good to me, probably just personal 
preference.  I thought that a WGHT>1.00 caused both the dits and dahs to 
lengthen slightly reducing the inter-element space so a character still 
occupied the same time period.  I think that's what your reference link 
is telling me too [it's the same as the User Manual for my USB WinKey] 
and I think that's what the K3 is doing.

Listening to my K3 off the air, I can't discern any shortening of the 
elements that I did with the -830. Why would I need Key Compensation in 
my K3?  I tried to measure it with the scope ... sort of inconclusive 
results mainly because I don't know how to work it but if the K3 keying 
is clipping anything off the beginning of the elements, I sure can't 
hear it.  Am I missing something?

<smalldigression>An OT commercial op, when I asked, "Exactly what is 
'swing'?", said it was lengthening the dashes on the bug so the dash-dot 
ratio was greater than 3:1, and that the resulting actual ratio was 
varied, depending on what he was sending.  I've always assumed he was 
right.</smalldigression>

73,

Fred K6DGW
- Northern California Contest Club
- CU in the 2013 Cal QSO Party 5-6 Oct 2013
- www.cqp.org

On 8/23/2013 6:51 AM, Hank Garretson wrote:
> It is very important to distinguish between Key Weighting and Key
> Compensation.
>
> See pages 15 and 16 here: http://k1el.tripod.com/files/WKUSB_QuickStart.pdf
>
> The K3 has Key Weighting. What it (additionally) really needs is Key
> Compensation.