CWComfort, a morse keyer with lazy attitude
My morse keyer, the one without timing hassels
By Christen Fihl, OZ1AAB
PS: No public code yet
Why
Years ago I gave myself the task of making a morse coding device, that is anything but a plain keyboard. Could have been a braille typewriter machine, having some 7 keys. But having a lot of morse kind of devices already, I stayed on the side swiping things.
Having tried the iambic mode, I realised that the timing part of “put a dash into the dots at the right time” was the hard one. And when typed and transmitted goes 1-to-1, i.e. you hear what you send, it would be even harder to transmit on different speeds. Using iambic, the timing in putting a dash into the L, . _ . . would be different using speed 12 and 18. I also wanted the correct letter spacing, and even word spacing (well that did call for some timing stuff)
My mantra/dogmas
- The CWComfort mode as like a keyboard, not related to the output beeing CW
- A single paddle keyer is “enough”, but iambic keyer can be used anyway, but without iambic
- Not much timing involved
- Can be used/manipulated at higher speed than actual transmission, ie always manipulate at speed 18 if you like, as transmit is exactly as configured
- Would also be a nice helper for CW training, having USB connection, keying directly into a Notepad/TextEdit,..
- Output is plain on-off keying the transmitter
Implementation, physical
- An Arduino Uno is pleanty of intelligence
- Arduino Leonardo is as tiny as it gets, with added features as USB keyboard (USB HID interface)
- The program can be configured with transmit speed, and to add extra (Farnsworth) spacing. Even when keying is done in ones normal (higher) speed
Implementation, the one timing that really needs to be there
Pressing dih or dah button will make 1, and max 2 dih/dah’s. The shortdelay determines when you get 2.
After same shortdelay without any dih/dah, you will get a letter space.
After a longer shortdelay without any dih/dah, you get the word spacing
Examples of keying
| di da | Nomenclature | |
|---|---|---|
| dih | i | short press dih |
| dah | a | short press dah |
| dih dih | I | longer press dih |
| dah dah | A | longer press dah |
| shortdelay | - | at least shortdelay |
| the long shortdelay | – | a longer shortdelay |
| L | Morse | How it’s keyed | alternative |
|---|---|---|---|
| M | _ _ | aa | A |
| S | . . . | iI | Ii |
| L | . _ . . | iaI | iaii |
| V | . . . - | iIa | Iia |
| 1 | . _ _ _ _ | iAA | |
| 2 | . . _ _ _ | IAa | IaA or iiaA or .. |
| CQ | _ . _ . / _ _ . _ | aiai-Aia |
Hello World = II-i-iaI-iaI-aA – iA-aA-iai-iaI-aI
Only timing is - and –, and you just key as fast as you like.
CWComfort vs Iambic
| VS | CWComfort | Iambic | Iambic? |
|---|---|---|---|
| wpm | ok | bad | Iambic forces you to track wpm used |
| counting | ok | bad | Iambic forces you to “insert dot on correct timing” |
| release | ok | bad | Bad as you also have to release inserted key on right timing |
| A | easy | easy | same same |
| C | easy, but more keys | easy, but timing sucks | Iambic still needs timimg to release on last dah |
| 2 | easy | tough | remember to release after 3 times dah, and timing depends on wpm |
Refs
](https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32617886318.html)