Tag: Morse

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After a second test resulting in a working display yesterday evening, my 2nd attempt to get a breadboard version of K3NG’s Arduino CW keyer up and running turns out to be a success!
This morning I soldered a female mini-jack and a speaker to the Arduino Nano and set the right pins in the Arduino IDE. After a upload/reboot the keyer came up and it works perfectly!
I really like this Arduino stuff. It is simple to figure out and the fact that it is open source (software as well as hardware) makes things easy and quick to work with. Hats off to the author of the keyer code: K3NG Radio Artisan.

I still have to try connect the keyer to a rig. The fact that you can use one paddle to key multiple rigs, I think is ideal. That way I never have to unplug my paddle from the TS-590 and plug it in the Elecraft K1 or the other way around. You can even connect as much as eight rigs! I don’t think a Arduino Nano has enough connections for it, but the software can do it.
Actually I think I will buy a Arduino Uno for this project so I have enough connections for all kind of options to activate. As controller I considering a rotary encoder. A separate power supply is needed too as you can see the display dimmed when the speaker makes sound.
And then the hardest part; find and build the whole thing in a nice case!

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I don’t think this free eBook needs a plug, but because I like it so much I want to mention it on this blog. Not much going on in hobby land at the moment. I try every night 15 minutes of morse practise, but even that often fails. Therefor my progress on CW is slowly as ever. But then again: hey! It’s a hobby, right?! As additional training I often listen to CW-podcast of AI4QR when I bike to work. According to the book of Carlo Consoli, IK0YGJ, it’s a good way to train your mind for the sounds.

At the moment I’m 4 CW lessons from finishing the course. I should be able to do some QSO’s on the bands soon (well that’s subjective in my case HI).

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Field DayA while ago Mark, PA4M and I planned a ‘field day’ of our own. Last Sunday would be the day if the rain wasn’t too strong. We picked a spot near the Gooimeer in the center of the Netherlands. We were in the middle of some farmers land. Mark did bring his homebuilt end fed for 20m and I bring a 1:10 MFTF-balun with the same 10 meter of wire as the end fed. This way we could compare both antennas.
Also I did bring the BuddiPole for it’s first run on new mast and tripod.

The IARU-contest was still going strong, so after setup the antennas and my Kenwood TS-590 rig Mark gave the key a spur and kicked 57 contacts in the log. Pretty nice when you take the bad conditions in consideration.

Too bad we didn’t hear any USA/Asia/Oceania. But after all a great day to be outside and testing our equipment!