RE;? Why do some people have a problem with the zBITX CW Mode and others do not?
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I tested with a Straight Key.? ?I can offer the following observations and opinions:
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- Send Fast (20-25 WPM) and you will have no problems.? You will report that it works fine.
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- Send Slow (~10 WPM) and you will have lots of problems.? You will report that CW does not work.
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It appears that as long as you hold this Semi-QSK device in the Transmit Mode, all of your Dits and Dahs are going to be seen and transmitted.? Let it drop out of Transmit Mode for a millisecond, and there is too long of a delay before it will go back into Transmit Mode.? It is not an Input Polling problem.? It is a processing problem where going back into Transmit Mode and processing the key down event does not get immediate priority over everything else.? ?When sending CW, absolutely nothing else matters.? ?You will not be using the GUI - you will not using the Receiver - you don't need to adjust the Volume.? The key down event simply has to take priority over everything else in the zBITX software.? Period.
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I also observed that if you use the Macros to send CW (CQ, Exchange, etc), the sending speed is not important because the Macro processing function holds the device in the Transmit Mode until the macro has completed.? So 5 WPM CW works fine here.
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I'm sure that there are some other extenuating circumstances, like the time that the CPU spends on all of the other totally unnecessary desktop OS crap that is running on this embedded RasPi device (like do we really need Bluetooth to be turned on?).? But I would not be too quick to blame all of that stuff without a detailed histogram showing where the zBITX RasPi is spending its time.
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As far back as I can remember, the *bitx family of radios has never had a very good reputation with running CW Mode.? Maybe that can be overcome with this zBITX.
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72,
Jody - K3JZD
