| KE2SD |
Rating:      |
2022-12-20 | |
| Great product and top shelf customer service! |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
| I've had a WK USB for well over a year at my home station and it works flawlessly. Preparing to head to Florida in our RV last week, I discovered my IC-7000, which has an internal memory keyer was malfunctioning. I quickly installed my IC 706 but needed a memory keyer. I ordered a new WKUSB on Wednesday and sent an email to Steve to see if he could expedite my order as I was leaving the following week. Not only did I receive my WKUSB in time for my trip but Steve followed my unit on the USPS tracking site to make sure I got it in time. Stellar customer service. Thanks Steve |
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| NN2X |
Rating:      |
2022-10-16 | |
| Good product and outstanding support |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
Product works fantastic, however, I would like to add the support.
Once again I had an issue, (Not with the product), but configuration, I had moved my Ham set, to the other room, and to add I reset my FT DX 10, Well, what a mess, I had other programs like HRD, FT8 program and so on
The support from K1EL, is awesome, I am sending questions, on an early morning (Weekend), and I got all taken care of by a few emails...That there is worth every thing...
Again, the product (Keyboard to CW) is fantastic,...I can copy code well, sending seems to be a challenge!
C U on the bands. 73, DE NN2X Tom
I like to transmit Key Board to CW...Although I use a paddle, Key board to CW, is my way forward.
I needed support (Some help on implementation) I emailed on a Saturday, 10 minutes later I get a response...All resolved
Outstanding product, does as advertised, and support outstanding
C U On the bands, DE NN2X / Tom |
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| KT8DX |
Rating:      |
2022-04-09 | |
| The Best Ham Radio Accessory Every Made |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
| I cannot imagine my CW amateur radio life without this little product. It has outlasted many rigs in my shack and continues to be something I use daily. |
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| W4HWD |
Rating:      |
2021-06-26 | |
| Excellent CW tool |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
| I received my WKUSB recently. Standalone startup was fast and easy. Computer setup was just as easy. This thing has more capability than I will ever use! It allows me to key my K3s and run logging/rig control software, and should improve my CW contesting skills by taking me off the key and putting me almost exclusively on the keyboard where I should be. |
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| K6SDW |
Rating:      |
2021-04-20 | |
| Great support and keyer |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
Everything went smooth, from assembling the kit to installing the USB drivers and the software.
I'm very impressed!!
Cheers All....
After years my keyer keeps on ticking...my laptop didn't. Laptop died and I had to reinstall Winkeyer USB drivers and from description on k1el website I did so and keyer talking to laptop again!! Excellent product and support |
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| WW5F |
Rating:      |
2019-08-26 | |
| Great keyer! |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
Love this keyer. Worked first time, no problems. Still working perfectly.
Used a memory keyer (MFJ-495) many times over the years for contests such as CQWWPX, Field Day, etc. Jumping back and forth between a keyboard connected to a computer running a logging program, preloaded memories on my MFJ-495 and my paddles raised my scores significantly. In retrospect, there was a lot of unnecessary movement (eyes on radio, computer, paddles, keyer, hand on radio, paddles, keyer) for this setup. I wondered how the heck some folks had QSO rates so high--must have had two people at the operating position--one handling the logging, the other handling the paddles.
Then, I realized what integrating the keyer to a logging program would do...
I'm surprised the popular logging programs *ONLY* have options for WinKeyer and NanoCW. They use a protocol way more complicated than the plain 'ole ASCII of an MFJ-495. I would think it would be easy to implement "plain 'ole ASCII" compared to implementing the proprietary WinKeyer protocol.
So my MFJ-495 now sits on the sideline until the popular logging programs implement a simple ASCII interface. 5 out of 5 for this keyer. 1 out of 5 for the popular logging programs only implementing the proprietary WinKeyer protocol. |
|
| DD4DA |
Rating:      |
2018-01-24 | |
| A well designed tool that do the job it build for |
Time Owned: 3 to 6 months. |
I had ordered this kit and the chips at my visit kentucky in the last october (2017) and build them if i am at home (DL) again. Their was no problems to build and assembled them in just about 30 minutes and it works immediately. The description of the functionality is availabe for download at the homepage of K1EL's Hamcrafters webpage, where i ordered the parts before.
I am appreciate for the decision to use the FTDI USB2Serial bridge, instead for the cheaper and more difficult silabs CP210x or the horrible Profilic HX230x brand.Everybody how has got this kinda chips will understand me.
Well, the description of the memories and further support of the Winkey functions by a program will be found at the webside and they are well documented. Similar the test program like wk3tools.exe are available for free at the webside.
In a regular case, the winkey is used by the contest logger like N1MM+ or similar other logging programms. I had done some experineces in the CWWWDX 2018 with the new keyer and i had no issues with it. The keyer replaces a winkey2 keyer that i used before. The older one is upgraded by replace the chip and was sold.
The manual keying with the new keyer is more smooth as the older chip. It's near similar like the IDIOM-Press CMOS-Keyer, where is prefere to use in qso case.
The box is good designed and the USB connection (plug, recepticale) fix the usb line stron enought. You don't lose the usb link, that's sometomes happend with the older keyer.
If you want to have a contest keyer you can decide you for the k1el Wnkey3. |
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| W3YQ |
Rating:      |
2016-11-21 | |
| Good product and support |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
| I own and use an older WK2USB and just recently added a WK3USB. I'm now linking the two together remotely through the WKremote software and they work well together. When I had some problems/questions regarding the remote software, Art jumped right on it and was very helpful. Good products at a fair price and FB support. |
|
| N8YQX |
Rating:      |
2015-12-13 | |
| Great keyer, disappointing as a kit |
Time Owned: 3 to 6 months. |
As a computer controlled keyer, I have no complaints.
As a kit, I was a bit disappointed. I knew getting into it that the SMT parts were pre-mounted, so I was expecting really small components (like metric 0603). The SMT parts were huge; something I could have easily mounted myself with my hobbyist iron.
If you're buying this for the kit aspect, look for some other project. |
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| W0CGH |
Rating:     |
2015-07-05 | |
| Great keyer!! Poor support. |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
I've been licensed for 45 years now and have always primarily been a CW operator. Not necessarily the fastest or best CW operator, but good enough to run a decent score on Field Day or some other occasional contest ans to have a load of fun doing it.
I've been using a CMOS Super Keyer III for all my operating since it first came out many years ago, and I have always liked the ease of programmability and the multitude of embedded commands available. Ten years ago I was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease, and being a progressive disease, it gets a bit worse every year. While the CQ loop, contest exchange, and confirmation message can be easily prograammed into the Super Keyer III, I still had to manually send the calling station's callsign ahead of the contest exchange, and in the last two or three yeaars this has become increasingly difficlt for me to do at the 30-35 WPM contest speed that I like to maintain.
Consequently, three years ago I began looking for a keyboard keyer that would meet my needs and the following requirements: 1) use of a single keyboard for both keyer and logger interface; 2) automatically grabbing the calling station's callsign from the input to the logger and inserting it ahead of the contest exchange; and 3) embedded commands equivalent to those available on the Super Keyer III. After shopping around and reviewing downloadable manuals and so on, I purchased the K1EL WKUSB keyer.
Before building the keyer, I did some more looking at some of the common logger programs available to interface to the WKUSB and discovered that most of the loggers were incorporating interfaces to very few of the powerful features of the WKUSB. Most, for instance, had no capability of calling the six internal WKUSB memories, and thus no access to the keyers powerful embedded commands.
With the keyer sitting on a shelf unassembled for a year and a half or so, I kept pondering the future of the project and how to make it meet my needs, including writing my own logger in Visual Basic 6, a language that I am fully versed in. After carefully reviewing K1EL's software interface documentation, I proceeded with the logger/keyer interface project in earnest in January 2015, with the goal of having it ready for Field Day that June. Most of the keyer functions that I wanted to implement to meet my requirements were fairly easy. Some however were more complex, and the software document was more than a bit cryptic on some of them.
Unfortunately, even though I fully explained what I was trying to do and why, asking K1EL for help turned out to be a lesson in futility. In one case promised sample code never materialized. In another case the only response I got was basically "Why would you want to do that?? No one is doing that." Well, I explained why I wanted to do it to begin with, and to me it was a real need, not just fluff.
Well, the logger was finished in time for Field Day, and did in fact meet most of my needs. To be fair to K1EL, I think he has designed a very powerful keyer. Unfortunately, his customer service, particularly in regard to software interfacing, is rather lacking. If I could split the two, I'd give the keyer hardware/firmware a 5.0, but his interfacing support a 3.0.
Brad, W0CGH |
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