[WT-support] Keyer

[Bob Wilson, N6TV]

On Thu, Jan 22, 2009 at 7:51 PM, Tom W8JI <w8ji at w8ji.com> wrote:

> I have my USB winkeyers working now and working with
> Wintest, but  cannot seem to change the keyer settings like
> weight or ratio or compensation without closing wintest and
> opening the keyer.


Normally only one program can talk to a Winkey at a time, via its virtual
COM port.

Do your USB keyers use the original Winkey chip, or the Winkey2 chip?
 Win-Test can change some settings on the Winkey chip via the WKSETUP
command, but AFIK they never added support for specific Winkey2 features, or
weight / keying compensation adjustments.  Maybe they will enhance the
Winkey setup screens in the future.


> I also cannot seem to get full speed
> range on the keyer knob, I've only tried that with the keyer
> speed set to control the computer speed also.


Try letting Win-Test alone control the speed of the Winkey, instead of using
the speed knob.  I know that pressing [Alt-F9] and [Alt-F10] it is not
nearly as nice as turning a knob, but for now it may be the only way to get
the full speed range that you want.

   1. Type WKSETUP [Enter] in the callsign field
   2. This window<http://docs.win-test.com/wiki/Menu:Options#WinKey_configuration...>is
displayed
   3. Under "CW Message and Paddle speeds", select Synchronized (Independent
   is problematic)
   4. Under "Speed setting" select "Only by the Win-Test commands"
   5. Press Alt-V or Alt-F9/Alt-F10 to verify that the full WinKey speed
   range is available, and the POT speed is ignored while Win-Test is running.

I use a Griffin Powermate USB
knob<http://www.amazon.com/Griffin-1100-PWRMTS-PowerMate-Multimedia-Controller/dp/B000RZO482>
to
send Alt-F9 and Alt-F10 "commands" to Win-Test, giving me speed control that
way (but more often I still use Alt-F9 or Alt-F10 or Alt-V).

Does this seem right? I imagined I would have full
> functional control of the keywer while wintest was running.
> Was that incorrect, and you can only set it when wintest is
> not on that com port?


As is often the case, only one program can use a serial port at a time, even
if it is a virtual serial port.  There are exceptions, but Win-Test is not
one of them.

If you want to adjust the Winkey weight/compensation settings often, you
don't have to exit Win-Test completely.  Just type SETUP, uncheck the Serial
port for the WinKey and press [OK].  Then adjust the Winkey settings with
your other software and exit it, then type SETUP again in Win-Test and
re-establish the serial port for the Winkey.

In sum, there are many opportunities to enhance the Winkey support within
Win-Test, but for now only the basics are supported.

73,
Bob, N6TV
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.f5mzn.org/pipermail/support/attachments/20090122/cf434edc/attachment-0001.htm