Sending CW through Soundcard interface?

[BMDaug]

Hello, I’m looking for windows software that will send CW via my Soundcard interface. I have a DRA-30 and use SoundModem… the trick is hopefully finding one with CMedia CM119 GPIO support for hardware PTT. I’ve been looking for a solid part of the day but can’t find anything useful with the potential exception of FLDIGI but I can’t figure out for sure if that’s a feature.

Is it possible to just run from a CW application through a KISS interface into SoundModem and have SoundModem do the PTT?

Thanks for the help!

-B

 

[AK9R]

There are several CW sending and decoding programs out there, CWGet and MRP40 are two that I've used. These programs generally look for something like a K1EL CW keyer for sending.

Remember, to send CW, you generally key the transmitter on and off. A K1EL keyer does that. There is something called MCW (Modulated CW) which keys the transmitter continuously and then turns a tone (800 Hz, for example) on and off to send the characters. MCW is sometimes used over FM. UZ7HO SoundModem is built to send and receive packet over FM which is AFSK (audio frequency shift keying). In AFSK, the transmitter is keyed and audio tones of two different frequencies (usually 1200 and 2200 Hz) are turned on and off to send the data.

You might look at something called MORTTY. It was designed as a hardware RTTY (FSK) interface. But, I believe they also incorporate a CW keyer into the design.

 

[BMDaug]

There are several CW sending and decoding programs out there, CWGet and MRP40 are two that I've used. These programs generally look for something like a K1EL CW keyer for sending.

Remember, to send CW, you generally key the transmitter on and off. A K1EL keyer does that. There is something called MCW (Modulated CW) which keys the transmitter continuously and then turns a tone (800 Hz, for example) on and off to send the characters. MCW is sometimes used over FM. UZ7HO SoundModem is built to send and receive packet over FM which is AFSK (audio frequency shift keying). In AFSK, the transmitter is keyed and audio tones of two different frequencies (usually 1200 and 2200 Hz) are turned on and off to send the data.

You might look at something called MORTTY. It was designed as a hardware RTTY (FSK) interface. But, I believe they also incorporate a CW keyer into the design.

Okay, this is making more sense… I always hear short Morse code messages over the local repeaters and I’ve been perplexed since I know that CW usually isn’t transmitted on FM and keying on and off like that would cause all sorts of issues with a repeater…

So… I guess I’m looking to do MCW on FM… I want to decode those short messages onto my computer and be able to send short messages or use the Morse code as my station identifier (I think that’s a valid way to identify right?).

Is there some software that will help me meet these goals? Is this a function built into some radios? I’m not trying to do this automatically so I suppose I could just manually key the radio and then hit send on the computer software which feeds the audio to the radio input…

Thanks for the insight!

-B

 

[AK9R]

I want to decode those short messages onto my computer and be able to send short messages or use the Morse code as my station identifier (I think that’s a valid way to identify right?).

I haven't looked at the CW sending capabilities of the various software decoders/encoders. That would be a good research project.

Per FCC rules, identifying with CW is compliant with the rules on any amateur radio frequency. See §97.119(b)(1) and §97.305(a).

Yes, some FM radios have built-in CW identifiers. They are usually tied to cross-band repeater function.

 

[majoco]

If you have any VHF beacons in your area, they will have an MCW ident. Our local one sends "ZL2WHO/B" twice every minute - the carrier is on just to send the ident and then is cut. I think the "WHO" are the initials of the trustee, nothing to do with the"world Health Organisation"!

 

[BMDaug]

If you have any VHF beacons in your area, they will have an MCW ident. Our local one sends "ZL2WHO/B" twice every minute - the carrier is on just to send the ident and then is cut. I think the "WHO" are the initials of the trustee, nothing to do with the"world Health Organisation"!

Cool, thanks for this! So it looks like I can just use any software that will play what I type as audible Morse code, then I can output to the Soundcard modem already connected to the radio and just key the radio up on whatever frequency I want to transmit on. I could even prerecord short status messages and just play them into the radio from the computer. I’m just thinking out loud here… no specific use case or anything.

 

[k9wkj]

FlDigi now has CM108 PTT support in Linux
you may have to build it from source, dont know if its packaged yet

I dont know if Windows has gotten it yet

 

[wyShack]

I am guessing but what you are likely hearing is the CW identifier of the repeater. This is typically a function of the repeater controller and is a tone (around 750 hz) sent over the FM. The code is just audio over the repeater transmitter. 73