HRD DM-780 Winkeyer no longer sending CW Macros to Flex 6600M

Mike Peron

Hi all,

I searched the Flex Community archives today for solutions and only found these dated posts not fully related to this issue.

https://community.flexradio.com/discussion/7010514/winkeyer-and-hrd-dm780-character-spacing-character-loss-workaround

https://community.flexradio.com/discussion/7311466/winkeyer-issue-hrd-dm780-and-smartsdr

It was suggested by one of the HRD Beta testers that I repeat my HRD Forum post here on the Flex Community with the hope of getting some ideas and suggestions.

After receiving no direct suggestions on my HRD Post, I submitted a HRD Support ticket and spent over an hour with an HRD support engineer via TeamViewer two weeks ago trying to figure this out. No joy so far. He reported that he has reached out to FRS to get inputs and ideas. In the meantime, I've been off the air (CW) using Winkeyer for a month now trying to get this fixed. The alternate CW (KY Cmd) mode keys the radio but returns to receive with the MOX button on (lit) and Flex Radio button RED (essentially deadening the receiver). The odd thing is that I had been reliably using the DM-780 Winkeyer with the 6600M for over a year using HRD v6.6 and SmartSDR v3.1.8. I updated HRD to v6.7 with same failed results. I updated SmartSDR to v3.1.12 with same failure. HRD' latest input says that their Winkeyer only works with the K1EL chip set and won't work with a Winkeyer emulation. FRS says that is not true supporting my year-long use of Winkeyer without any issues. Given this backdrop here are some relevant pieces of my month old HRD Post.

Problem: The CW Macros are no longer sending to the Flex in the CW (WinKey) mode. I get a "Winkeyer is not started" error message. 

Analysis/Actions: In checking Winkeyer's dialog box, it shows "Connected". If push the Winkeyer dialog box's "test" button it transmits the canned "test de DM" to the Flex. If I change the DM-780 CW mode to "KY CMD", the Macros keys the Flex so I know the Winkeyer's Flex COM Port (COM7) is working. RTTY and PSK Macros also key the Flex normally. WSJT also works perfectly (outside of HRD).

Thinking it may have been corrupted software, I upgraded to the current HRD v6.7.0.301 and get the identical results. I've checked all my HRD and Flex Winkeyer settings (serial port COM7) and everything is as it was a year ago when I last upgraded HRD software. T.

Having recently been "bit" by a Windows update that prevented HRD Logbook from starting (BTW, thanks to HRD for writing that timely solution email!), this is smelling of the same.

Thanks in advance,

Mike WB6UTW