[WT-support] Sudden Keying Problems - Update

[Hal Offutt]

Thanks, Bob, for your quick reply to my posting.  I wanted to let you and anyone else interested know how things turned out.

Your advice rang true and I remembered that recently I had moved the Win-Key a little closer to the rig just to clean up the wiring in the shack.  After reading your post, I moved it a little further away, added some more ferrites and replaced the Dell keyboard (it has a mushy feel anyway; the replacement Dell keyboard had a better feel and a built-in ferrite which the first one did not). 

Result:  problem gone and WT performed fine during the IARU.

As an aside, before taking the above steps, I noticed something strange:  when CQ repeat was on, the repeat speed would follow the speed set in WT only for the first CQ and would follow the speed set on the Win-Key on subsequent CQs.  I guess this must have been a result of RF getting into the Win-Key.  It no longer does this.  

Thanks again for your help.

73, Hal W1NN  
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Bob Wilson, N6TV 
  To: support at win-test.com 
  Sent: Friday, July 08, 2011 11:54 AM
  Subject: Re: [WT-support] Sudden Keying Problems


  This sounds like a stuck key problem, with RF getting into the keyboard or the WinKey, not a Win-Test problem.

  To confirm this RFI theory, back off power to 5W, then see if you can still recreate the problem.  Then slowly increase power to 100W to see if the problem returns.

  You might be able to bypass the problem by going into the Windows Control Panel, Keyboard, and setting the keyboard repeat delay to a much longer value, but a better solution would be to reorient the cables, check that all coax connectors are tight, and add ferrites on all cables connected to the computer and WinKey.

  73,
  Bob, N6TV

  On Fri, Jul 8, 2011 at 8:25 AM, Hal Offutt <hal at japancorporateresearch.com> wrote:

    Last night in the NCCC Sprint, Win-Test went crazy on me.  I set things up an hour in advance and when I hit F4 for my first contact, it kept repeating my call and esc would not stop it.  I shut off the rig (K3, 100 watts no amp) and when I turned it on again I got "key err" on the display.  I probably should have shut down WT instead of the rig.   Next I shut down WT and started it up again.  This time it wouldn't send at all even though it said "Win-Key detected."  I rebooted the computer 2-3 times but it still wouldn't key. 

    Then I created a new log and everything was okay again.  I finished up the last 12 minutes of the contest with no problems.  This morning I tested the log file that gave me so much trouble last night and it works fine.

    This morning I have also been testing things to see if I could reproduce last night's problem and unfortunately I was successful on a different band with a different antenna.  I was using the F1 CQ message but it wouldn't stop sending and ESC will not work.  Rebooting the computer fixed the problem.  

    The computer is  Windows XP Pro SP3.  The computer is less than one year old.  I am using Win-Test Ver 4.5.1

    I wonder if anyone has experienced something like this and what you did to fix the problem.

    I am planning a full effort in IARU tomorrow so I am worried that this issue could surface again during the contest.

    Thanks & 73,

    Hal W1NN 


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