CW Keying Via MIDI

[Rick R]

Hello all,

Love the radio and the documentation has been very useful getting most everything setup. I'm still trying to perfect the CW interface though. I've got things working ok with an external keyer but ideally I'd have sidetone in my headphones.

How exactly do the CW controls in Thetis work? I've read the manual and have been playing with MIDI and winkeyer control and nothing I do seems to get it to key in the application.

Any tips would be greatly appreciated!

[James K4JK]

I am having trouble with Thetis and Midi keying also. Mapping 127 to 'CWX Key' will key up the rig momentarily, but full keying does not seem to work.

It's unclear otherwise how to set things up. The Teensy keyer I have (Thanks Jim) works well with SparkSDR but I have not been able to figure out Thetis. Running 2.9.0.8 Beta 4.

[Reid Campbell]

Hi James,

Have you the SEMI break-in switch active on the Console and CW mode selected.

You also need to uncheck Setup|Options|Options-1|Options|Disable PTT to turn off the Thetis generated sidetone.

Cheers 

Reid
Gi8TME/Mi0BOT

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[James K4JK]

Hi Reid,

Yes I have these set... If it tap either paddle I get a Keyed CW signal for about 1.5 seconds and that's it. No dits or dahs.

Are there any other Midi mappings needed beyond mapping Min 0 and Max 127 to CWX Key?

Thanks!

James

K4JK

[Reid Campbell]

OK, James. I have done a few test but couldn't see any issue my side.

Could you tell me a bit more about your keyer and what firmware it has in it.

Cheers 

Reid
Gi8TME/Mi0BOT

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["Christoph v. Wüllen"]

Sure that you have not messed up the PTT and CW outputs of the keyer?

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[Reid Campbell]

He specificity did say CW Key. I was wondering if he was running your
software because that is the only one I have tested with.

["Christoph v. Wüllen"]

If he messes up the Key-down and PTT commands at the *output* of the keyer,
then the outcome is exactly as described.

For MacOS there is a "MIDImonitor" program which "snoops" and logs all MIDI messages
in the system. I do not know if such a program exists for Windows but
this would then be a great debugger. Without that, it is hard to tell.

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>

[James K4JK]

Hi All, thank you for the help. This is my first foray into Midi hardware.

I'm using one of Steve's prototype Teensy Keyers with DL1YCFs Latest Winkey Emulator firmware.

I have a Mac and downloaded Midi Monitor, thank you for the tip. Attached is the output of Keydowns and ups for both paddles. It appears to be sending 127 for On and 0 for Off. Screenshot is attached.

Setup works great with SparkSDR, but having issues with Thetis. I wonder if I have some other buggered setting somewhere that I am missing.

James

K4JK

["Christoph v. Wüllen"]

I can comment on this (a copy goes to Reid)

a) Normally one should use MIDI Note-On messages with a "velocity" different from zero for "press" events,
and MIDI Note-Off messages for "release" events. However, many MIDI consoles *only* use Note-On
events an use a velocity of zero for the "release" event.
So normally SDR programs should accept both Note-Off and Note-On events, but treat both Note-OFF
and Note-On with v=0 as "release" and Note-On with v !=0 as "press".

The Keyer uses Note-On and Note-Off, so an SDR Software which only accepts Note-ON with v=0 will
have a problem (@Reid: is the problem here?)

b) The MacMIDI monitor output is clear: the "Note" F-sharp-1 (Midi Key Number 30, but the counting
of MIDI octaves is not consistent) is assigned to PTT. It gets "on" first. You have obviously
chosen a lead-in time of 150 msec (I think I once set this as the default), since 150 ms after
PTT there is a Note-on on F-1 (MIDI key number 29), with a Note-off 210 msec later.
After a pause of 70 msec (so your dot length is 70 msec, your CW speed was 17 wpm), there is
another key-down period 210 msec. Following this, I see a sequence of dashes.

c) At the very end, there should eventuall be a Note-Off with key number 30, after a certain hang time,
but I guess this is below the bottom edge.

So @Reid: Is it possible the the Note-OFF are not properly recognized? Simply take a Note-OFF as
equivalent to Note-On with velocity zero.

Yours,

Christoph

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[Reid Campbell]

Morning all,

Christoph, I'm currently running your software and it working fine, so there must be a configuration issue. There is a Diagnostics form in the Midi Controller Setup. Here's what it is showing for me

0

00

99

11

7F

0A

Note On

1

00

99

11

00

0A

Note On

2

00

99

11

7F

0A

Note On

3

00

99

11

00

0A

Note On

I'm not seeing any PTT, which may be the issue, yes, I think I know what's going on. The PTT is confusing things. When you try to map the midi key to a command, the PTT is always the first thing seen because you can't separate the PTT and Keying when you touch the paddle.

Christoph, how do you switch of PTT and Thetis can use break-in. I think it's via the Winkeyer interface?

Cheers 

Reid
Gi8TME/Mi0BOT

[James K4JK]

Reid,

Thank you for this info, it got me on the right track. I was able to Edit the Pin Config register in the Shield to not assert PTT, then re-write to the eeprom. Cristoph's code of course checks the register when it is initialized, so it was sending the PTT note before sending the key notes.

After remapping the Midi controls in Thetis all seems to be well now. 

Cheers,

James

K4JK

[Reid Campbell]

Pushed to the group

-------- Forwarded Message --------

Subject:	Re: CW Keying Via MIDI
Date:	Fri, 18 Aug 2023 20:11:46 +0200
From:	"Christoph v. Wüllen" <DL1...@darc.de>
To:	Reid Campbell <scumballc...@gmail.com>

I do not use Thetis, so I have not understood this. Does not sound like a straight-forward
user interface. What the average user would expect is two input fields

- note number for CW Key-down/up
- note number for PTT on/off

but as you told me, without PTT (and it seems not be necessary with Thetis) it works, so tell the
original user to switch off PTT in the WinKey interface.

Am 17.08.2023 um 22:37 schrieb Reid Campbell <scumballc...@gmail.com>:

The mapping procedure in Thetis relies on a unique midi value when you activate the control input. Because there are two, it takes the first and maps the function on to it. You can get around it by switching off PTT, mapping the keying note. Then switch on PTT and map the new note to CW PTT.

Cheers

Reid
Gi8TME/Mi0BOT

On 17/08/2023 11:41, "Christoph v. Wüllen" wrote:

Yes, the WinKeyer interface has check-boxes which outputs are active,
this can by Key-1, Key-2, PTT-1, and PTT-2

If you only want Key-1, it should be sufficient to uncheck PTT.

Whether or not you need PTT is implementation specific in the SDR program.

In piHPSDR, if using an external keyer, you have to put the radio in TX
mode before you can key, here the logical sequence of events is

PTT on
(wait 100 msec, for RX slew-down and TX slew-up)

many Key-down / Key-up command

(normaly the keyer waits "hang-time" before it decides it is all over)

PTT off

BUT, if PTT-on/off is detrimental, why not simply ignoring it?

I guess the problem is that you do not discriminate the Key number,
so PTT-on is taken for a Key-down?