AmateurRadio.com

My single-lever PCB keyer KI6SN/NB6M-style

It may seem like a bad idea to downgrade from a dual-lever paddle and iambic keyer to a single-lever paddle. It must be inefficient since each individual dash and dot has to be generated by a right or left movement of the paddle. Despite this, many of the champions in the High Speed Telegraphy competitions use single-lever paddles, often home-made ones. How can that be?

K7QO, Chuck Adams, wrote “Using an Iambic Paddle” and compared the dual-lever paddle with the single-lever with respect to number of movements. If all 26 letters of the English alphabet and the numbers from 0 to 9 are sent, the single-lever paddle requires 73 strokes while a dual-lever and an iambic keyer requires 65. This is 11% less.

But when N1FN, Marshall G. Emm, wrote “Iambic Keying – Debunking the Myth” he analyzed the 7 letters that are faster to send with an iambic keyer – C, F, K, L, Y, Q, and R – and found that only one of them, the L, is among the 12 most frequent ones in English. He illustrated it this way:

Guess what’t wrong with this figure? He didn’t see the R and forgot that it is also among the most frequent letters!

So two of the faster letters are among the most frequent ones, not just one. I guess that N1FN’s estimate of only a 5% increase in efficiency when letter frequencies are taken into account is a bit too small then. In addition comes the fact that CQ, and all Q-codes use letters that are more efficient with the iambic keyer, so in radio amateur use the efficiency advantage of the iambic keyer is probably even more than 11%.

So this doesn’t explain the fact that many of the high speed champions do so well on single-lever paddles. My experience is based on learning to send Morse code at the age of 47. Somehow I feel that this was 20-30 years too late in order to master all the finer movements involved in iambic keying.

The issue must be tolerance to errors, not just efficiency. The high-speed champions value that and increasingly the producers of morse paddles are including single-lever paddles in their assortment.

A single-lever paddle is also easy to make yourself, much easier than a dual-lever paddle. I made one from printed circuit board based on the paddles of KI6SN. That design was a modified version of the miniature single-lever paddle of NB6M. I made it just to try the concept before I move on and eventually buy one. But the homemade one was surprisingly good to use, so I might stay with it for a while. The nice thing is that the single-lever couldn’t care less if your keyer is set up for iambic A og B. Neither if the keyer does the ultimatic mode which I promoted recently (Is the ultimatic Morse keyer really that efficient?)

There should be freedom in choice of paddle, so everyone should find what suits best regardless of what is the current fashion or what it is that is considered to be ‘best’. So whether you are a newcomer who struggle with learning to send properly with an iambic keyer, or an oldtimer who keep using the dual-lever as if it is a single-lever paddle, feel free to change to a single-lever paddle. I am sure you will notice a reduced error rate.

The question for me is what “real” single-lever key I should upgrade to, they all look attractive: Begali, Bencher, Bushwhacker, Hi-Mound, Kent, K8RA, N3ZN, Scheunemann, UR5CDX, Vibroplex,  …

Series Six Episode Eleven of the ICQ Podcast has been released. News Stories include :-

• Fox-1 has a launch date!
• Israel on 5 MHz with 8 channels
• Ham Radio your free social network tool
• South African 5 MHz operation - interesting propagation paths
• ZS2X VHF beacon now covering most of South Africa
• Oklahoma storm - Radio Hams respond
• Radio News in Irish
• Combining Software Defined Radios and Smart Phones

Martin Butler (M1MRB & W9ICQ) reviews Slow Scan TV (SSTV) and a report from our north American correspondent Frank Howell (K4FMH).

Series Six Episode Eleven of the ICQ Podcast has been released. News Stories include :-

• Fox-1 has a launch date!
• Israel on 5 MHz with 8 channels
• Ham Radio your free social network tool
• South African 5 MHz operation - interesting propagation paths
• ZS2X VHF beacon now covering most of South Africa
• Oklahoma storm - Radio Hams respond
• Radio News in Irish
• Combining Software Defined Radios and Smart Phones

Martin Butler (M1MRB & W9ICQ) reviews Slow Scan TV (SSTV) and a report from our north American correspondent Frank Howell (K4FMH).

Series Six Episode Eleven of the ICQ Amateur / Ham Radio Podcast has been released. The latest news, Martin Butler (M1MRB & W9ICQ) reviews Slow Scan TV (SSTV) and a report from our north American correspondent Frank Howell (K4FMH).

• Fox-1 has a launch date!
• Israel on 5 MHz with 8 channels
• Ham Radio your free social network tool
• South African 5 MHz operation - interesting propagation paths
• ZS2X VHF beacon now covering most of South Africa
• Oklahoma storm - Radio Hams respond
• Radio News in Irish
• Combining Software Defined Radios and Smart Phones

For some time, I have been keen to try some portable operation through some of the amateur radio satellites. I had been particularly inspired by Pete 2E0SQL’s portable operations through the satellites with his FT817 and hoped I could do the same.

Pete uses the Arrow 145/440MHz antenna and as far as I could see, it was not readily available in the UK. I contemplated ordering one from the USA but the thought of the import duty put me off a bit. AMSAT UK carry stocks of the ELK 145/440MHz log periodic which also have a good reputation albeit at a price. I’d recently disposed of a couple of bits of kit on eBay, so I felt I was in credit and ordered an ELK!

I was delighted when it arrived this morning. I wasted no time in making up a cable between the N connector on the ELK and the FT817. Assembling the antenna proved quite straightforward.

My first check with the antenna at ground level in the back garden was to see if I could hear GB3VHF, which I could, so given that’s not a huge signal, I was confident the antenna was working.

I looked at GoSatWatch on my iPhone to get some satellite predictions and as luck would have it, SO-50 was passing over at precisely that instant. I heard signals, so that was promising.

The next pass of SO-50 was a nice high one, so I was all prepared and sat out on the lawn with the FT817 and the antenna. R1AO was the first station heard, and although he had a little difficulty getting my callsign, we just about made it. IZ1DBY heard me and called as well, so that was very promising indeed.

I’m hoping to try some SSB operation through FO-29 as well.

The ELK antenna comes with a neat carrying case that will easily fit in a rucksack. It will form a very useful part of my backpack portable station I think. I’m also looking forward to doing some satellite work when we’re on holiday in Devon from a slightly rarer square than IO91!

It was good to see, during the week that Joe Taylor, K1JT took WSJT-X from its Beta state to a ‘release’ version. If you’ve been reading this blog you’ll have seen that JT9, the mode produced by WSJT-X has been very usable for some months, so the last few weeks have seen a few tweaks to the software.

It works well and it has gained in popularity recently over recent weeks – with a very considerable amount of activity now available on the mode. Interestingly, Joe says that future plans for the program call for the integration of some of the more popular modes from the WSJT software. This sounds good – particularly incorporated in the very easy to use interface provided in WSJT-X.

Don’t delay, grab your copy of WSJT-X today!

I am a big fan of the men and women who make up our Armed Forces.  They’ve gone above and beyond for our country so many times – from 1776 right up to the present day.  This weekend a really cool super special event is taking place to honor the men and women who have served in the respective navies of all of our countries and the ships that they have served on.

Thanks to the Battleship New Jersey Amateur Radio Station, this weekend has been organized and dedicated as Museum Ships Weekend.  106 restored military ships from around the world, which now serve as museums will be on the air this weekend.