I have found that v2 firmware has poorer keyclick results than v1 on my
Orion. It's not just a question of rise time, but the shaping (raised
cosine) of the wave -- gradual transitions at start and finish of the
key-up or key-down ramp. V2 seemed to have poorer shaping, especially
when the power setting was < 100. This problem may carry over to the
Orion II, and the situation may get worse when you're using an amp. I
don't have a scope with delayed sweep - that's what I really need!
You can check my efforts at
http://blog.aa6e.net/2006/07/orion-keyclick-checks.html
My advice is to run with as long a rise time as you can, consistent with
your keying speed.
73 Martin AA6E
William Q Meeker wrote:
>
> I have been playing in the CQ WW 160 meter contest over the weekend.
> Last night another ham, about 20 miles away spotted me on the cluster
> with the comment "with clicks." I am using my Orion II (version
> 2.037j) and was running close to the legal power limit (Alpha 99)
> with a separate receiving antenna so that I do not have to exercise
> the A99's relays.
>
> After that report came through I immediately checked the setting in
> the Orion II and it was at the recommended default of 5 ms, and
> because I have never had any other reports like this in the 5 months
> that I have had the Orion II, and I know that strong stations can
> overload a receiver to cause clicks, I just continued on.
>
> This morning, after the band closed, I hooked up my monitor scope to
> have a look. The wave form looks good, but I have not figured out
> some kind of standard so that I can measure the exact rise/fall time.
> In looking at the archives of this list I saw an old posting that had
> measured the actual rise/fall times against the settings and found
> that the actual times were less. To be safe, for now I changed the
> Orion II to 7 ms.
>
> A few questions:
>
> 1. Has anyone measured the rise/fall times in this version of the
> Orion 2? How accurate is the rise/fall time setting of the Orion II?
> And of course, as a statistician, I wonder if this is consistent over
> different units. If several people have done the measurements, we
> could sort this out.
>
> 2. If my rise/fall times are set a 5 ms, and the wave form shape has
> the right shape on my scope, could I still be creating objectionable clicks?
>
> 3. What other things should I do to check for the clicks?
>
> 4. In the Orion II manual (October 2006 version) on page 31 is says
> that "For external keying the rise fall times available are 3ms to
> 5ms regardless of the keyer speed." I can adjust between 3 and 10, so
> I suppose that this is a typo?
>
> Bill
> K0KT
>
>
>
>
>
> William Q. Meeker
> Department of Statistics
> 304C Snedecor Hall
> Iowa State University
> Ames, Iowa 50011
> Phone: 515-294-5336
> Fax: 515-294-4040
> Home Fax: 515-232-1323
> www.public.iastate.edu/~wqmeeker
>
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