wfview looks very interesting. I’m currently using Win4Icom suite with my IC-7300 but am always interested in something new.
How does wfview handle sending CW? My remote rig is equipped with an external Winkeyer, but most of the time I use the 7300’s internal keyer. At the moment, I don’t even see CW mentioned on wfview.org. Is this coming in the future or available now?
Thanks in advance and 73,
Ken Alexander, VE3HLS
It definitely will be something to check how feasible it is. CW, at high speeds definitely need steady and low latencies.
re keyers – I don’t have winkeyer so cannot comment on the use of it.
RCForbs has CW capability. It works threw the data connections somehow to send commands for the Dit / Dah. I have seen no issue with latency at all here on my RCForbs remote. I have multiple high speed CW operates that use it daily. The audio connection for the remote can and does suffer from various latency’s from users, but somehow the CW doesn’t suffer from this on TX.
Most of the radios I have experience with require a CW keyer to TX in CW. RCForbs has the ability to interface a USB “keying cable” to operate the CW keyer input. Here is an example of what I have for the IC7100.
If this type of cable could be incorporated into wfview as a peripheral for CW.
I have played with a certain sdr rig some time ago in a contest env and many times too late or inital chars incomplete.
In any case, fast transmissions with predefined keys is easy for certain rigs as they can send via CI-V.
FWIW – I have rcforb (including the app) , win4icom, rsba1
Thanks Erik,
I’ll give it a try if wfview doesn’t work out, but for now I want to work with wfview.
Thanks again,
Ken Alexander VE3HLS
So Phisai, Thailand (OK18rc)
Blog: bueng-ken.com
Thanks Roeland,
Hopefully, one of the developers can jump in and comment. I haven’t found anything about it on the website and don’t see on their roadmap.
Thanks again,
Ken Alexander VE3HLS
So Phisai, Thailand (OK18rc)
Blog: bueng-ken.com
Roeland is one of the developers 
I added CW to the roadmap. It’s something we definitely want to support, and we would really value input here as to what methods might be best.
73,
–Elliott
de W6EL
Hi Elliot,
Sorry, I didn’t realize Roeland is a developer! My apologies to Roeland! I literally found out about wfview an hour or two before I posted my first message.
I should tell you that my IC-7300 and I are located 12 time zones away from each other. I’m retired and live in Thailand and my radio is in VE3.
I currently use Win4Icom suite. It provides a CW Terminal that lets you type in plain text, which it uses to control the 7300’s internal keyer. You can also save a dozen or so short messages for casual contest operation. I don’t know if the internal keyer accepts ASCII text input or not. There may be an intermediate step (or two) that I don’t know about.
It can also use a Winkeyer, which can take ASCII text and translate it into Morse Code. The Winkeyer connects to the 7300 via the Key jack, so there are two methods of sending Morse Code for us remote operators to send Morse Code to a 7300. I rarely use the Winkeyer because the 7300’s internal keyer is good enough for me.
Most of my CW operation is in contests. I believe N1MM contest logger sends text to the 7300’ keyer or to the Winkeyer.
I’m interested in helping out if I can. I’m about 13,000 km from my transceiver, which likely makes me a worst case scenario for remote control. 
I’ll install wfview on my host computer and see how it goes with WSJT-X. If you want to try some experiments with CW just let me know. Be advised I’m not a programmer, but I can follow simple instructions! My host in VE3 is capable of changing Menu settings in the radio but hasn’t had to touch the radio since we set it up in Nov 2019.
73,
Hi, I have used “CW with remote controlled radio” (google it) many times during the last years. You can not use sidetone from the rig with internet delays. Side tone must be generated locally. There is a need for a slight delay with some buffering…
/ regards Tommy SM6NZB / SM6L
Skickat från min iPad
Excellent, it would be interesting to be able to connect to the external WinKeyer with a dedicated door, for example in my case that I use the MicroKeyer I have the dedicated port of the external keyer. 73 Alessandro IZ4OSH
The RCForbs system also has to generate the side tone locally. You can listen to the radios side tone if the radio is providing it, but the latency just makes it confusing.
It too supports direct typing input for CW and also supports the use of a simple USB interface cable if you want to use your straight key or electronic keyer.
I know this isn’t really helping too much but maybe it will spark an idea. I’m also not a programmer so I’m just talking about how it interfaces.
Here is an example of the simple keyer input cable.
I wrote a small program to talk to the winkeyer chip in prep for field day. You’re more than welcome to glean any nuggets of gold from it. It’s in Python but it would be straight forward to convert what you need.
GitHub - mbridak/PyWinKeyerSerial: Talk to the K1EL WinKeyer.
Cheers
Mike K6GTE
Hi Mike,
Help a new guy to CW out here. Your program lets one type messages. The text goes to some kind of device called a “winkeyer” that goes from USB to morse code key analog plug in the rear of the rig? I just need to understand the mechanics here.
Also, is this really preferable to, say, fldigi with CW? Because we do support fldigi and CW ops out of the box already.
Sorry, I have not used CW much, but I’ll learn!
–E
de W6EL
Hi Elliott,
I think most peoples objection to using fldigi for CW is that it isn’t ‘real’ CW
It is actually MCW (modulated continuous wave) and from what I understand, in the USA amateurs are not permitted to use MCW transmissions in areas of the bands that are allocated for CW operation.
I think that we should be able to achieve something but timing, especially for remote operation, is going to be the biggest hurdle.
73 Phil M0VSE
Hi Phil, fldigi you can use it as a normal cw, just configure the port dedicated to the external keyer. I used it for tests I performed for a radio amateur who asked me the same question. So what you’ve been told only partially answers the truth depends on how you see it. Rather than fldigi, I prefer N1MM. 73 Ale iz4osh
Hi Ale,
What I said is correct in the context of wfview though as although FLDigi can key an external interface, there is no method to support this within wfview. What Elliott was talking about (using fldigi to send CW remotely via wfview) is MCW or CW Keying by Audio Tone.
N1MM+ on the other hand doesn’t support MCW, it can however key CW using CAT “KY” commands which would work with wfview (but this is not officially supported by the N1MM team.) This is covered quite well in the N1MM+ manual page https://n1mmwp.hamdocs.com/setup/interfacing/#interfacing-for-ptt-and-cw-keying there is no other way to send CW via wfview at the moment.
73 Phil M0VSE
Hi Phil, the cw must always be performed in its natural way, so in WF just set an external COM port to connect the keyer and the game is done. Those who do high-speed cw like I do, only use the external keyer connected to a com port. If you look in n1mm it connects to the door dedicated to the keyer. Then you can use the rtx keyer but here you have to play with two factors called rts and dtr. 73 iz4osh Ale
Hi Ale,
So does the winkeyer send commands to the radio, or pulses to the CW key connector? I just want to understand more what you folks are discussing.
And understood about the MCW vs keyed methods. Is winkeyer method much different from using fldigi in a “keyed” mode with commands to the radio?
Thanks,
–E
de W6EL
yes very different and simpler to manage the cw, in this case you only need a COM port and a key for the cw nothing more. 73
Hi yes, the winkeyer comes in different form factors commonly with a USB connection to an internal FTDI serial chip that talks to a micro controller. It’s pretty much the defacto standard external keyer device. It has advantages over modulated CW. The timing is not dependent on the host PC which may experience high cpu load which may effect the CW timing. Some say the modulated CW is a wee bit wider in bandwidth than a keyed CW signal. It presents a straight key interface to the radio. After the initial hoops to initialize the interface you just pass it bytecode for the characters and it keys it from an internal buffer. it does prosigns, you can have it send and track contest exchange serial numbers.
As far as fldigi goes, I believe you can have fldigi use the winkeyer device instead of modulated CW.
So following that rabbit hole, if your program can use fldigi to send cw, and fldigi can be setup to use the winkeyer… Then this may already be solved…
Mike K6GTE
