CW sidetone with LAN remote

Les Brown

I have a Flex 6500. When I use headphones plugged into the 6500 I hear CW side tone ok. When I select 'REMOTE' in SmartSDR I can hear receiver signals on the band but no CW side tone when I transmit. What am I doing wrong?

Stu Phillips - K6TU

Les,

When you use remote audio, CW sidetone is generated in the SmartSDR client itself and NOT the radio.  As a consequence, you will only hear sidetone when your headset is plugged into the PC and you send CW using CWX.

The reason is that there is a slight delay created by the Opus codec that is used to encode the audio for remote.  It would make using a paddle/keyer plugged into the radio quite difficult because of the delay between paddle closure and when you would hear CW sidetone.

Stu K6TU

Les Brown

Stu,

   Thanks for the quick response. So, if I want to use a paddle connected to the 6500, the only ways I can get the side tone would be:

1) using the headphones connected to the 6500, or

2) connecting my powered speakers directly to the 6500.

There is no way to get the side tone out of the powered speakers connected to the PC (unless I want to abandon using the paddle and only use a keyboard to send code). Is that correct?

Les, VE3ABN

Tim - W4TME

There is no way to get the side tone out of the powered speakers connected to the PC (unless I want to abandon using the paddle and only use a keyboard to send code). Is that correct?

That is correct.

Stu Phillips - K6TU

Les,

Yes - that is correct.  Extract from the SmartSDR 1.5 documentation... (ref page 59)

16.5 OPERATING CW WHEN USING LAN REMOTE When operating in CW mode while LAN Remote is enabled, the CW must be sent with either a key or paddles directly connected to the radio or by using CWX. At present there is no feature to attach a key or paddles to the PC to operate CW remotely.

Note: CW sidetone is only available when using CWX if LAN Remote is enabled

Stu K6TU

Les Brown

Ok. I found a solution ... sort of. I fed the powered speaker output from the 6500 into the line-in of my PC and I set the PC to send this to the powered speakers attached to the PC. The only problem is that there is a delay between the audio out to the headset attached to the 6500 and the audio out to the PC's powered speakers, enough of a delay to create problems keying at 25 wpm. It seems that the PC has a delay in passing the audio.

I guess it's back to the store to buy an audio mixer. That should do the trick.

Les, VE3ABN

Al_NN4ZZ

Hi Les,
It sounds like a solution will exist when V2.x comes out.    You will be able to connect a paddle to your remote PC.  And the sidetone will be generated on the PC.   Steve discusses the options here:

https://community.flexradio.com/flexradio/topics/remote_is_cw_via_a_paddle_in_scope_for_the_remote_e...

Regards, Al / NN4ZZ  
al (at) nn4zz (dot) com
6700 - HW V 1.5.0.65
SSDR V 1.5.0.145
Win10

Tim - W4TME

The only problem is that there is a delay between the audio out to the headset attached to the 6500 and the audio out to the PC's powered speakers, enough of a delay to create problems keying at 25 wpm.

This is why we do not generate sidetone on the PC for direct connected keying devices when operate in REMOTE mode.  With CWX we can generate the sidetone in real time on the PC.

Tom--W4FAS

GM All,

I think I have read, but I cannot find it now, that N4PY Pegasus Plus software provides the capability to transmit cw remote using an external k1el keyer and paddle. If this is correct, it would provide another option to consider while waiting for V2.

Tom

Stu Phillips - K6TU

This is a practical solution;  the K1EL keyer produces the sidetone locally and can be configured to echo the CW CHARACTER that is generated by the paddle actions as an ASCII character on the USB port.

With locally generated sidetone, you don't have the cumulative delays between audio and paddle actions that otherwise make operation very difficult.

Although less elegant (software on both ends and TWO K1EL keyers), the WKRemote program from K1EL does the same thing.

Stu K6TU

Frank WA3NHK