How to setup the CWirc CW KEYER (plugin) to send morse code with your paddles, bug or key.

[Chuck aa0hw]

CWirc is a LInux plugin for Xchat that was originally designed to send morse code over an irc channel.  

This video shows how to adapt the CWirc plugin in order to use it to send cw with your PADDLES, BUG OR KEY by "keying" the CWirc APP,  and send morse code audio tones to your computer sound card.  You can use if to key your RIG(with an audio derived cw keying circuit) and/or have a qso over the internet with some of your friends over VOIP or WebRTC (et al)

The accuracy and timing of this plugin is remarkable...using Audacity to record a stream of dits...it was measured to have exactly the same dit lengh and space between dits - on every one of the dits,  and spaces between dits

                a USB SERIAL PORT ADAPTER was used to key CWirc with my paddles

FOR MORE INFO on this setup, please see the show notes below the video

on its YOUTUBE LOCATION Here:   https://youtu.be/RklzruIP5Fk

[Chuck aa0hw]

Here is a way to clean up the edge noise on the cw audio tone output of CWirc, since CWirc has a very sharp rise and fall time, there is some edge noise and key clicks...but this pulseaudio-equalizer got rid of it all ...

[Chuck aa0hw]

"This video demonstrates a step by step tutorial on how to use CWirc with PULSEAUDIO

[Chuck aa0hw]

This video shows a way to key CWirc without using any PACTL pulseaudio loopback cables, by using the pulseaudio-equalizer plugin instead, to filter the CWirc cw audio tones, and the pulseaudio LADSPA EQ  plugin creates its own separate audio pathway inside PulseAudio that we can use for the Mumble INput.

[Chuck aa0hw]

Here is another video demo'N a very simple setup using a Raspberry PI and the CWIRC plugin,  you only need a USB SERIAL PORT ADAPTER... The PI's own analogue sound card(if you enabled this as the default soundcard on your PI) is the default sidetone output...no pulseaudio needed, no jack audio connection kit needed...just the PI and a USB SERIAL PORT ADAPTER(or a SERIAL PORT raspberry PI HAT)

This video demo's using a Raspberry PI 2b and the CWIRC plugin(Xchat plugin) to make a CW KEYER for paddles, or Straight Key by keying a USB SERIAL PORT ADAPTER that is connected directly to the 3 iambic paddle terminals...

The morse code keying latency was so low with this setup, that i noticed no delay in using the iambic paddles whatsoever...however, you must bring up Xchat using "aoss xchat" to get the lowest possible latency ...

the CWIRC cw keyer sidetone will automatically go out the Raspberry PI's own analogue sound card(if you have enabled it for default sound on your pi)

for this setup to work...these programs must be installed:
1. CWIRC
2. alsa-utils
3. alsa-oss
4. alsa-tools
5. xchat

you have to jump through a couple of hoops in order to use CWIRC:

1. bring up Xchat in terminal - aoss xchat
2. login to the freenode server
3. make sure you have the xchat Userlist buttons in view
4. disconnect from the Freenode server(unless you want to qso someone in that channel)(see cwirc manual)
5. click on the CWIRC Userlist button to bring up the CWIRC CW KEYER CONTROL PANEL....
list your usb serial port adapter in the settings /dev/ttyUSB0
adjust the keying settings per your preferences

connect your paddle GROUND to the serial port DTR pin
connect your paddle's dit and dah contacts to the serial port DSR pin and CTS pin...according to which side you want the dah and dit on your paddle...

If you select on CWIRC the straight key mode, either the DSR or CTS pin will work to use with the straight key...

NOTE: to keep false keying signals(from static build up) from being keyed, i have connected a .47uF cap between the DTR pin and the DSR pin and the DTR pin and CTS pin...

[Chuck aa0hw]

Here is another video that shows a Raspberry PI keying CW on a RIG with both CW KEYBOARD and PADDLES

CW KEYBOARD is CWTERM...see this video for more info: https://youtu.be/k73ofo0sVY4 CW KEYER for PADDLES and STRAIGHT KEY is CWIRC...see this video for more info: https://youtu.be/ocK7c_WhtWw the setup uses 2 USB to SERIAL PORT adapters... one for the CW KEYBOARD and the other for the CWIRC CW KEYER ...to key the rig, 2 simple circuits are used: for the CW KEYBOARD, i am using an optoisolator FET...where the input diode connects to the serial port RTS and DTR pins and the output of the FET connects to the RIG's CW JACK for the CWIRC CW KEYER, i am using an audio derived CW KEYING CIRCUIT...which takes the analogue audio output from the PI's speaker jack and goes to an 8 ohm to 1000 ohm audio transformer, then to a germanium diode voltage double, which keys a transistor which then keys the RIG's CW JACK... both circuits are on the same breadboard shown on the video...and taken from examples in this article: http://qrqcwnet.ning.com/forum/topics...

[Chuck aa0hw]

Here is a video demo of a complete Raspberry Pi CW KEYING STATION using CW KEYBOARD, PADDLES and STRAIGHT KEY: 

Using FLdigi for the CW KEYBOARD, and 2 instances of the CWIRC cw keyer Xchat plugin...for the PADDLES and STRAIGHT KEY...

each instance of the CWIRC keyer is brought up in terminal using the command - aoss xchat
2 individual USB to SERIAL PORT adapters are used to activate CWIRC to send a sidetone..and the standard serial port pins are directly connected to the morse code instrument terminals for keying...
DTR PIN = (GROUND)
DSR PIN = ( dit or dah or st key hot lead)
CTS PIN = ( dit or dah or st key hot lead )
using AOSS XCHAT has the lowest latency possible on CWIRC, and the paddles and st key should work without noticeable delay in keying them and hearing the sidetone from the rig

for this CWIRC setup to work...these programs must be installed:
1. CWIRC
2. alsa-utils
3. alsa-oss
4. alsa-tools
5. xchat

you have to jump through a couple of hoops in order to use CWIRC:

1. bring up Xchat in terminal - aoss xchat
2. login to the freenode server
3. make sure you have the xchat Userlist buttons in view
4. disconnect from the Freenode server(unless you want to qso someone in that channel)(see cwirc manual)
5. click on the CWIRC Userlist button to bring up the CWIRC CW KEYER CONTROL PANEL....
list your usb serial port adapter in the settings /dev/ttyUSB0
adjust the keying settings per your preferences

connect your paddle GROUND to the serial port DTR pin
connect your paddle's dit and dah contacts to the serial port DSR pin and CTS pin...according to which side you want the dah and dit on your paddle...

If you select on CWIRC the straight key mode, either the DSR or CTS pin will work to use with the straight key...

NOTE: to keep false keying signals(from static build up) from being keyed, i have connected a .47uF cap between the DTR pin and the DSR pin and the DTR pin and CTS pin...

here is an ongoing article about using CWIRC:
http://qrqcwnet.ning.com/profiles/blogs/how-to-setup-the-cwirc-cw-k...

If you have already set your PI to use the analogue sound card on boot up...CWIRC will automatically use this for audio output when keying the paddles or straight key..

to KEY CW on the rig, an audio derived CW KEYING circuit is used...
- one of the circuits from this article should work:
http://qrqcwnet.ning.com/forum/topics/what-circuit-for-computer
an audio cable is connected from the PI's speaker jack audio output over to the audio derived cw keying circuit's input transformer...an 8 ohm to 1k ohm transformer...on this video, i am using a germanium diode full wave voltage doubler ...which provides enough power to key a simple 2n3904...which keys the rig's CW JACK

FLdigi sends audio to the pi's speaker jack...by selected the pi's analogue sound card (BCM2835 on my pi2b) in the FLdigi sound device settings