Last Friday night, I spoke about CW to the Central Michigan Amateur Radio Club. They have several members who are really interested in learning CW, and one of the things they plan to do is to set up a 2m CW net using modulated CW (MCW). I had just the perfect project for them.
Ten years ago, I purchased a little keyer called the PicoKeyer from a company called HamGadgets. The cool thing about this keyer is that it has an MCW mode that allows you to easily send CW with your FM transceiver. In MCW mode, the keyer’s output acts like a push-to-talk switch. I added a little circuit to bring out the audio and connected both of those signals to the packet connector of my ICOM IC-207.
I described all this to them and promised to send them links to the post here on my website. Before I e-mailed them, I thought I’d better check if HamGadgets was stlll in business and if they were still selling the PicoKeyer.
There’s some good news and some bad news about this, though. The bad news is that HamGadgets no longer sells the PicoKeyer. The good news is that they now offer a product called the Ultra PicoKeyer. It still has an MCW mode and comes in a little plastic enclosure. It now costs $29, instead of the $18 I spent for mine. So, you pay a little more and get a little more. It’s still a pretty good deal in my opinion.
One thing the new Ultra PicoKeyer is that it has an audio output. The original PicoKeyer did not. With the new keyer you don’t have to kludge something together like I did to operate MCW.
You still need to make up a cable with a couple of 3.5mm plugs on one end and whatever connector your rig needs on the other. Some radios, like the ICOM IC-208H actually has a packet port on the back that takes a 6-pin DIN connector. All of these connectors are available from HamGadgets at very reasonable prices.
I was thinking of purchasing one of these kits and some connectors and “upgrading” my current setup. What I have works just fine, though, and I don’t really need another project on my workbench. I do encourage any of you who are interested to give it a try, though. If you do, e-mail me and tell me how it goes.
Bob K0NR says
Dan,
Thanks for posting this. This looks like the best solution I’ve seen for doing MCW with an HT.
Bob K0NR
Jon Armstrong says
Thanks for your article on mcw this would be an excellent project for my local club I’m an old time however there of any brand-new hams who have not experience the joy of CW this would be a great way to help them get into CW and get excited about it. Thank you so much and 73
Dan KB6NU says
Building these keyers is actually a good club project. We got started with HamGadgets when we were looking for a club build project. We built at least a dozen of them and got them all working. For several of the participants, it was their first time building something electronic!