[CQ-Contest] CW keying interface

[Chris Tran ZL1CT]

Hello all

I have to disagree about the quality of CW produced by *most* PCs running 
under XP Pro - I've tried a Winkey and could detect no significant 
difference with the CW produced (using Writelog or Wintest and LPT1) - it 
was good under all circumstances between 20 and 40wpm.

Can anyone help with suggestions about keying one of my boat-anchor radios - 
an FT-101E which uses grid-block keying with about -8V across the key. I'm 
using Wintest via the LPT port to drive a K3KU style interface (with a 
2SC640 as the PNP device) - I cannot achieve a sufficiently 'hard' 
earth/ground across the key contacts, even with the transistors saturated - 
the radio appears to key properly but the sidetone osc is not being 
activated. I don't want to use a reed relay circuit - maybe a MOSFET circuit 
would be better ?

73
Chris
ZL1CT / GM3WOJ