K1EL K45 CW Keyboard and Reader Manual K45B
K-45 User’s Manual - Rev B.0
3/8/2023
Page 11
K45 Programmable Messages
There are 12 programmable message slots per user, each slot can hold up to 120 characters. For very long
messages, multiple messages can be chained together. Messages are assigned to the function keys
F1
through
F12
. Pressing one of these keys will play the message. Messages can be stacked, in other words,
if you press
F2
three times in a row, the message in
F2
will be played three times. You can even stack
different messages on top of each other, for example:
F2 F2 F3 F1
. The K45 allows up to 8 stacked
messages, if more than that are added, the last one entered is retained.
Editing messages
Hold the shift key down while pressing a Function key (
F1-F12
) and that message and tag will be read in for
editing. The user edits the message in the familiar way using the Up/Down/Left/Right, Home, End,
backspace, and delete keys. In addition, Shift-Left and Shift-Right move the cursor by word, Shift-Home
moves to the beginning of a line, and Shift-End move to the end of a line. To quickly clear either an entire
message or tag, use
^L (CTL-L)
.
EDIT F1: CQX3
CQ CQ CQ DE WA1XYZ
WA1XYZ WA1XYZ K_
Figure 8 – Message Editor Example
There are six 20 letter lines allocated for each message for a total of 120 characters. Since only three lines
are displayed at a time, use the up/down arrow keys to view them all. Word wrap is not enabled in the
message editor, this provides the most efficient use of limited display real estate.
Message Tag
The top line of the message edit window shows the current message tag. A tag is an eight-character
identifier that is shown in the Message Launch Menu (
ESC-M
). For
F1
to
F10
, the initial tag is TAGn where
n is the message number. The initial tags for
F11
and
F12
are
MYCALL
and
WRKCALL
. Any of these tags
can be changed if desired. The most common use of
F11
and
F12
are with the automatic exchange
generator but they can be used just like any other slot. (see
^X (CTL X)
command on pg. 9)
When the cursor is moved up to the top line, the cursor will snap to the tag for editing. Use
^L
(CTL-L)
to
delete the current tag or move the cursor to the end of the tag and backspace left to delete letter by letter.
Use the down arrow to leave the tag and get back to the message. When message editing is completed, use
ENTER
to save the new message or
ESC
to cancel the edits and revert to the original message and tag.
Fast Callsign Capture Feature
The K45 can store a callsign as it is entered on the paddles or keyboard. Press either
^C
(or the star key in
NumPad mode) and
CLL
will be displayed on the status line. Enter the callsign on the paddles and after a
pause of one wordspace, it will be stored in message slot F12. When using a keyboard, enter a space after
the callsign to store it. Note that the callsign is saved as it is being transmitted. So when calling someone,
first press
^C
, enter the callsign, and then continue on. Their callsign will be held in
F12
. If the user’s callsign
is loaded into message slot
F11
, a full exchange will be sent when either
^X
or
ENTER
is pressed. For
example, if
F11
is loaded with K1EL and WA1ABC had been captured into
F12
,
^X
will send the string
WA1ABC DE K1EL. Because
F11
and
F12
are normal message slots, they can be sent individually by
pressing
F11
or
F12
. The default tag is
MYCALL
for
F11
and
WRKCALL
for
F12
but these can be modified
in the message editor. To cancel callsign capture, either press
^C
again or
ESC.
Buffered message commands
A simple set of commands can be used to compose complex CW messages. A command is a letter
preceded by the \ (backward slash). Commands are inserted into a message to perform various functions.
For example, a speed change is implemented like this:
\S05
SLOW TEXT
\S30
FAST TEXT
\R
will send
SLOW TEXT
at 5 WPM
and
FAST TEXT
at 30 WPM