[WT-support] Win-Test vs. WinKeyer USB

[sm5ajv at qrq.se]

> On Sun, Oct 10, 2010 at 8:56 PM, Rick Tavan N6XI <rtavan at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> Apparently the WinKey "PTT Tail" does not work well with the way that
> Win-Test sends ASCII characters to the WinKey.  Win-Test sends one character
> at a time.  Apparently, during the PTT tail time, the WinKey2 will not send
> any CW.  The result is that if you send P40L at 36 WPM, the first dot of the
> 4 is clearly truncated.  I cannot explain it completely, but setting PTT
> Tail to 0 fixed the problem.  The Win-Test default is 50ms for both PTT lead
> and PTT tail time.  I think this number is way too big.  8 ms lead time is
> plenty for most modern amplifiers.  PTT "hang" time can be controlled with
> CW VOX delay in the radio.  I believe the Win-Test default should be 0, not
> 50.

I have experimented at lot with WinKeyer and PTT-keying. At the moment I have
reverted to use the Serial keying in WinTest instead, despite the hiccups you
may get from computer generated CW.

The WK2 implementation of PTT lead and tail is best suitable for Paddle and
not for canned messages. For instance if you push F1 with a CQ I would like the
following to happen:
 1. Set PTT to ON
 2. Wait PTT-lead time
 3. Send ENTIRE F1 message (without keying the PTT-signal)
 4. Wait PTT tail time
 5. Set PTT to OFF
I would prefer to set PTT tail time to 0 in order to get the receiver back
immediately after the last character in the F1 buffer.

The WK2 chip is no implemented like this. Instead the PTT can go down between
words in the message depending on how you have set the PTT tail-time.

Further, there is a difference between N1MM and WinTest. If you put
PTT lead = 5 and PTT tail = 20 in N1MM it sounds just great. If you
do the same in WinTest you get chopped CW (due to PTT-on/off keying).
If I increase PTT lead = 10, WinTest starts to work better, but still
choppy.

One of the differences I have found is that N1MM send the whole message
to the WinKeyer in one chunk. WT on the other hand, as N6TV pointed out,
sends one character at a time.

I would like to have WinTest to send the whole messages in one chunk
in order to have similar performance as in N1MM. If you want to interrupt
the transmission instantaneously. there is an WK2 command, 'Clear Buffer',
that can be used.

There is also a WK2 command for controlling the PTT On Off, but I am
not sure if this is the way to go.


73
Ingo, SM5AJV / SE5E