CWQ, a CW QSO Program

Background

Recently I was developing a CW interface to the K1EL WinKeyer and I decided to make a simple program to allow keyboard transmitting for non-Field Day use. This was fine for sending, but had no support for typing copied code on the keyboard. So I decided to make a program that would facilitate regular CW QSO's, copying the code manually and typing it into the program, and sending from the keyboard via a serial interfaced CW keyer. I started with FDLog and worked from there. I also did some searching on the net and found lots of programs to computer-copy cw but none that support manual copy and typing in as CWQ does.

Features

• CW keyboard to transmission support with buffering
• Programmable Macros such as send file, cq, etc.
• Typing copy into the program in a scrollable window
• Having both outgoing copy and incoming copy in a scrollable window
• Capturing both transmitted and received/typed copy into a logfile on disk
• Paddle interruption dumps buffers (depends on Keyer support)
• Paddle CW input copied into log (depends on Keyer support)
• Contact Log in ADIF format records the usual info about the contact
• Logfile in text format, ADIF compatible
• K1EL Winkeyer compatible (both serial and USB models)

Status

• 7/15/2006 Program sends, receives, puts text to logfile; does Contact Logging in ADIF
• 7/18/2006 v1.5 Some Macro functionality implemented - read file, change speed, tune etc

Notes

• This is a work in progress. Since it was adapted from FDLog it contains a lot of extra stuff that is commented out but not deleted yet.
• The code is beta quality - it works but is incomplete but useful (Author is using it, and it was used to transmit the 2006 West coast ARRL Frequency Measurement Test from WA6ZTY).
• It requires Python, PySerial and PyWin32 libraries
• It runs on Windows, it might run elsewhere if the serial libraries are there... let us know!
• It is compatible with the K1EL WinKeyer chips which are in many keyers

Downloading

• GNU License
• Download cwq.py

Installing

• Install Python
• Install PyWin32 (compatible version to Python)
• Install PySerial (compatible ...)
• Download cwq.py file (see link above)
• Connect Keyer to Serial Port (optional, CWQ works w/o keyer but has reduced functionality)
• Run cwq.py by double-clicking or from a command window

Getting Started

• When CWQ comes up it will search for the keyer on all available serial ports.
• There are two keyboard 'modes' - 'Sending' and 'Copying'.
• '!' is the 'Sending' prompt (and command), typed text will be sent in cw and logged.
• '#' is the 'Copying' prompt (and command), typed text will only be logged.
• Type '!' to go to Sending mode.
• Type '#' to go to Copy mode.
• There are two windows. The lower window is the typing window, and the upper window is the log window. Lines in the log window are date/timestamped.
• Macros - see the Help/Macros menu.

AlanB

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CategoryHamRadio