[Elecraft] KH1 firmware rev. 1.24 now available (CW/SSB cross-mode)

[Wayne Burdick]

There are a few cases where you may want to work an SSB station with your KH1, transmitting in CW mode:

- checking into an SSB net (there are many of these on 40 m during the day, for example)

- using a mixed-mode QRP "watering hole," e.g. the HF-pack calling frequency, 18157.5 kHz

- when only SSB activity can be found on a given band

Thankfully, a large percentage of SSB operators can copy CW. On a net, there will almost always be someone who can. 

CW has a large S/N advantage over SSB, so you may find that you can hold your own running 5 or 10 watts CW when SSB stations are running 100 W. 

Rev. 1.24 of the KH1 firmware provides this CW/SSB cross-mode capability. There are no settings needed for this: just select either upper (U) or lower (L) sideband using the BAND/MODE function, tune in a station of interest, and hit the key. The KH1 will offset its TX frequency so SSB stations will hear you at your sidetone pitch.

***NOTE***

This rev of firmware also corrects a problem with dot/dash reversal of the KEY jack. So before you load it, please read the release notes below carefully.

73,
Wayne
N6KR


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KH1 Firmware Information

KH1 MCU 1.24, 31 Jan. 2024

* CW/SSB CROSS-MODE ADDED: The KH1 can now transmit CW while listening to LSB or USB stations (i.e., cross-mode operation). SSB stations will hear the KH1’s CW at the user’s selected sidetone pitch. Message play, CW text encode/decode, logging, and note taking are all functional in this case. NOTE: Log time stamps show the receive mode: “CW”, “US” (USB) or “LS” (LSB). Transmit mode is always CW.

* KEY JACK DOT/DASH REVERSED: The key jack now matches all other Elecraft transceivers, with LEFT=DOT and RIGHT=DASH when MENU:KEY JACK = Paddle Normal. This applies to external keyer paddles. It also applies to the new edition of the KHPD1 plug-in paddle. However, the original KHPD1 plug-in paddle (shipped with roughly the first 100 KH1s) is wired in the opposite way, so that MENU:KEY JACK = Paddle Reverse will be needed to configure it for LEFT=DOT.

* SIDETONE SETTING BUG FIXED: Plugging in headphones while setting sidetone volume (MON) no longer results in loud tone bursts.