I’ve been practising reading Morse using various software tools for around 11months and I’ve been practising keying for a couple of months, using a twin-paddle key. I can read 10 wpm on a good day, and as others have found, it is slightly easier to key at the same speed, although my ‘fist’ isn’t good.
As I’ve said before, the whole purpose of radio is to communicate and I was very pleased when a friend at the local radio club suggested that we try a QSO (two-way radio contact).
Antenna and Rig
I’ve not yet tried to transmit even though I’ve had a Windom (asymmetrical dipole) antenna since October. My friend is about 10 miles from here, at a low-lying location close to the Thames. My aerial can supposedly operate from 10 to 80 metres (28 MHz down to 3.5 MHz) although my radio can go down to 1.8 MHz.
Bands
We tried 7.010 MHz to start with, as the band was fairly quiet. We soon found out why – propagation conditions must have been poor – I could just hear a transmission but there was too much noise for communication.
We then tried 14.005 MHz but that was very noisy. 3.505 MHz and 1.997 MHz were just as poor. Then we tried 28.005 (i.e. the 10m band) and I received him 599 (i.e. loud and clear). But he couldn’t hear me even though I’d cranked up to 100 watts. That doesn’t make sense, as reciprocity should apply to the signal path: if his signal can reach me, my signal should reach him.
I couldn’t find anything wrong and we’d run out of time.
Trouble-shooting – the BK-IN setting
Coming back later, I realised I had probably fallen into a trap on my Yaesu FT-710. I set its CW keyer to Elekey (Iambic) Mode B at 10 WPM and I’d set the BK-IN (break in) mode to ON. This means that the keyer transmits as you key. If BK-IN is off, it only produces a side-tone that lets you hear what you’re keying, but it doesn’t transmit.
Set for each band
BUT, what I hadn’t realised is that the BK-IN setting (which is set from the touch-screen menu) has to be turned ON for each band separately. If you change bands then BK-IN won’t be on unless you have previously set it. You have to open the touch-screen menu, find the BK-IN box and change it. I suppose this is fail-safe, but there isn’t much indication of the setting, except that the transmission indicators on the tuning dial turn red when the transmitter is sending.
However, I’m inexperienced and I’m thinking about what I’m keying, rather than looking at the radio, so I didn’t notice this.
Accessibility of controls
Unfortunately, the touch-screen menu isn’t that easy to access and use unless you’re very familiar with the radio. This is the downside of a radio that basically only has two knobs to adjust the settings. For example to change bands, you press the band button on top of the radio but this just brings up a screen with all the bands that can be accessed – and there are a lot. You then touch the screen to choose the band you want. So a lot of the settings are fiddly to reach. Of course, by omitting lot of hardware knobs and switches, the radio can be smaller, cheaper and more reliable but it becomes more fiddly to operate.
We have arranged another session, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed.