Clay (w1pi) and I have been talking about putting more space between words and/or letters when sending with the keyboard. Below is an email to Clay with my finds in send a test message. I discovered that rather than hitting the space bar 2 or 3 extra times (makes only a very small space difference) if you HOLD it down for however long you want the space to be, it puts it there. Our concern is, will that space cause the breakup of the beginning of the next word, like you hear with the first couple of letters when the sender transmits.... or will it continue cleanly. I know there are several people interested in this. Here is the email I sent Clay and we will be testing this to see if it works. I know the spacing works great... but don't yet know how each of the next words/letter will sound.
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Hi Clay. I have been experimenting with what we have talked about with the "space bar" and making wider spaces between words. Yes, you can hear the difference if you give the space bar two or three taps between words BUT.... HOLD DOWN THE SPACE BAR for a longer period and it puts in a long space ... it seems to match the length of time you hold down the bar... so if you want 2 seconds between words, hold it two seconds, etc. AND, of course you can even put bigger spaces between EACH LETTER if you want to do that. This will work out great!!!!

NOW... the only thing is ------ on the receive end, does the next word (when you have made this long space) still sound clean or does it break up.... I would think it would still be clean as long as you are still ahead in your typing.... but I guess that depends if the CQ100 program sees the LONG space the same as it sees continuing letters. I haven't worked anybody doing that yet... but it for sure lets you hear the extra space as you are sending.

This would be great for someone that needs to hear the CW slowly. OR, if you need an extra split second to think about what you want to say, just hold down the space bar until you are ready to continue.

When I use the keyboard (rather than my Bencher paddles) I tend to SPELL OUT EVERYTHING, where as with the Bencher I would do lots of short cuts.... but I have trouble breaking away from fully spelling out every word. As I was testing using the space bar between thoughts, it seemed to allow my brain to go back into the mode of abbreviating words and therefore shortening up the message somewhat.

Anyway, I think this is something that can really come in handy. PRESS and HOLD the space bar for a little extra time between words or even letters... BUT, you must still keep ahead the typing so the program doesn't catch up to you.

I'll look forward to testing this you and finding out (hopefully) that the beginnings of words stay clean and unbroken.

rich ae0v grand island NE

Hi guys. I am really happy to see there is such large interest in CW. We did not spend a lot of effort on CW because we wanted to get the program finished and just wanted to say it has CW capability. I sounds like we need to spend more effort in getting the CW really good.

FYI, The CW tones are transmitted as VOIP data across the internet at the same time the same data is sent to your local sound card. So the remote receiver should be hearing exactly the same thing the local sidetone is saying.

The CW engine we are using has the capability to set Farnsworth letter spacing to any value. I think we should make both the letter spacing and word spacing settable on the configuration tab behind the white question mark.

The current Vox Dwell for CW is hard-coded to about 2 seconds. I think we should make this dwell respond to Vox Dwell knob, so different operators can set it to suit their style.

The slight breakup of the CW when the Vox comes on should be solvable by sending enough audio silence to allow everything to stabalize.

I really hate using the keyboard to type CW because my typing speed is slower than my CW speed. I feel pressured to try to keep ahead with my typing. A few stations are now excellent code over QsoNet using paddle.
The problem is the raspy sound of most keyers.

thanks for your input Doug. Yes, I think there will be more CW interest than you might think. Also, even though I can type pretty fast, I still feel that same "pressure" as you mentioned to stay ahead. I like the keyboard CW just fine, but the biggest thing is.... if I am way ahead and finish my message, then I tend to forget what I said :) and then have to sit there and copy the rest of the message to remember what I said.

I have also messed around with direct input of a tone from my keyer by putting the mic on it (bad way to go) and also via my HF rig's headphone out into the computer.... both ways the CW is copyable, but the tone is not good. I have heard some that are getting a good tone and hope to maybe hear them respond hear as to how they are getting the audio into the sound card to get such a clean sound.

On another post you mentioned that at one time you were able to hook up a paddle direct to the sound board... I hope that is an option that you may be able to make available at some point. That would be ideal.

Thanks for all of this .... as EVERYONE says, this whole program is absolutely great.... who would have imagined ??

rich ae0v grand island NE

To all concerned, It seems to me that the problem with the present cw program is the VOX function on CW. If this function (VOX) was disabled for CW only, could that be a solution? Regardles of what some people say, CW is making a strong comeback. I think QSONET can be a valuable tool for beginners as well as a pleasure for old timers. I like the clear signals because of no QSB,QRM or dependence on propagation. Messages are easy to copy. I sincerely hope the problems can be solved. Thank You for a wonderful idea and Good Luck to all the people involved with this program. :D 73

Issi kc5ptx

Hi Issi. The new version released yesterday makes some improvements to the typed CW, including the vox. See the message at the top of this topic.
73 Doug

Hi Doug, I just downloaded the latest version. I now have 178 on ? about. I am working closely with AE0V and anxious to see the difference. Thank You :D 73