K1EL K45 CW Keyboard and Reader Manual K45B
K45 User’s Manual – Rev B.0
3/8/2023
Page 28
either Iambic mode, alternating dits and dahs are sent while both paddles are held closed. In Iambic mode
B an extra alternate dit or dah is sent if both paddles had been pressed and then released. In Ultimatic
mode, when both paddles are pressed, the keyer will send a continuous stream of whichever paddle was
last pressed. For example, if you are holding the dit paddle and then press and hold the dah paddle, the
keyer will switch from sending continuous dits to continuous dahs. In Ultimatic Dit mode, dits always take
priority while dahs take priority in Ultimatic Dah mode.
In straight key mode the K45 only accepts input between the tip and ground of the paddle connector. (see
page 21, fig 19). The K45 will decode straight key input just as it does for paddle input. This applies to
normal sending and also both Echo and QSO practice.
Configuration Menu #3
1:DDratio 5:Sidetone
2:1stExtn 6:STvolume
3:Farnsw 7:ST Freq
4:ASRmode 8:PDLwatch
Figure 26 – Configuration Menu #3
1:DDratio - Set Dit/Dah Ratio (66 to 132%)
Default is 50% for standard 1:3 dit/dah ratio. Smaller values decrease the ratio while larger values increase
the ratio. This causes an intentional distortion to the Morse waveform. Some ops use this option to make
their CW sound less “machine like”. Experienced CW ops will recommend that you should always leave the
ratio set at 1:3 which is the universal standard.
Increased Dit \Dah Ratio
Normal R
Decreased Dit \Dah Ratio
Max Value Allowed is 66
Min Value allowed is 33
Figure 27 – Dit Dah Ratio Timing
2:1stExtn - Set 1
st
Element Extension
The K45 addresses problems often encountered when keying older transceivers with slow break in
response. Due to a slow receive to transmit changeover time, the first dit or dah of a letter sequence can be
chopped and reduced in length. Adding a fixed amount to the first element of a sequence can compensate
for this. In other words, the first dit of an R would be elongated but the subsequent dah-dit is sent normally.
The compensation amount is transceiver dependent and is generally independent of sending speed. Note
though that this is usually only a noticeable problem at higher CW speeds >30 WPM. The value is set in
milliseconds and must be in the range of 0 to 99.
A challenge in this scheme is to determine when sending has stopped long enough to cause the transceiver
to switch back to receive. If it has it’ll require a new first element correction on the next sequence. The K45
uses the PTT tail timer to determine this so set the tail timer to roughly match the transmit to receive
changeover time of the transceiver and things will work fine. It takes some trial and error to get it set up right.
This can be used for port 1 or port 2 since the PTT output is not required, only the timer is used.
Unfortunately, it’s not possible to set a different PTT times for port 1 and port 2.
Normal R
Increased 1st Dit
Figure 28 – First Element Timing