Up Creating a Virtual Port Radio Control FSK Operation CW Operation

Setting Up CW

CW keying using the microHAM USB micro KEYER with WriteLog works well, but because of the nature of USB, there may be times when a character will get "chopped".  I used CW keying through the keyer in the August 2004 NAQP CW contest and made over 300 contacts with it.  I was using a slow 200 mhz Pentium I PC under the Windows 98se operating system.  I found that as long as I was just contesting, there were no problems sending CW with the keyer.  I did experience a very short "chop" of one character whenever I was sending my confirmation message, logging a contact at the same time and WriteLog decided to save the log to disk.  I had WriteLog set up to save to disk every 20 QSO's (AutoSaveCount=19 in the writelog.ini file under Configuration).  The "U" in my TU AA5AU message is the character that got "chopped".  It wasn't very bad, it still came out as a "U".  It's just that the spacing between the dits and the dah was shorter than normal.  This did not impede the operation at all and was not a problem.  But it was noticeable.  To circumvent this from happening, I did an occasional CTRL-S in WriteLog to save the log during periods when I wasn't transmitting.

To use CW keying with the microHAM USB micro KEYER, you must create a Virtual Port using the Device Router if one has not already been created.  If you created a virtual port for FSK, you can also use it for CW and vice versa.

  1. Create new or use an existing Virtual Port for FSK using the Device Router software.  On the Ports screen of the Device Router, select which virtual port will be used for CW (this can be the same port as FSK if you choose).  For this example, I used virtual port COM6 for CW.

  1. Leave the Device Router open and running or minimize it if you like.  Open WriteLog and choose a CW contest module.  Set up for CW transmission by telling WriteLog which port you will be using for CW.  Go to the Setup menu in WriteLog and select the first option - Ports.

  1. In the Port Setup screen, click the COM port you will be using in the CW column.  Also, click "PC generates" as the CW keyer type.  When finished click OK.  Save your changes by doing a Save Configuration from the Setup menu.  It's always a good idea to reopen the Port Setup screen a second time to make sure the changes you made were saved.  Note: As you can see from the example above, COM6 shows up in the first CommSlot in the Port Setup.  This is because there are only 4 CommSlots in the Port Setup screen and in order to use a COM port higher than COM4, you must change one of the existing CommSlots to show the COM port you wish to use.  For information on changing a CommSlot, check here.

If CW appears sluggish, as it did when I initially tested CW, try setting the Router Priority in the Device Router software.  Go to the Router menu and check the first option RT Priority.  In my case, I had RT Priority checked and had to un-check it in order for CW to work on my Pentium I machine under Win98se.

This completes setting up WriteLog for CW operation through the microHAM USB micro KEYER. 

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