Subject: PicoKeyer update available
From: Dale Botkin (dale@botkin.org)
Date: Fri Feb 27 2004 - 00:00:41 EST
Hi folks. Over the past few weeks I have had scattered reports of people with new PicoKeyers having problems with memory playback. Not all, but a few. The symptom is always the same; only the first character of a message stored in memory will play back. I was unable to duplicate the error, until just recently. Working with an individual who provided a ton of help in trying out various things, we finally determined what seemed to be the problem. There appears to be a marginal timing issue involving the paddle inputs. It only affects some percentage of the chips for whatever reason, and it's often made worse by any capacitance on the inputs (like a cable). In some cases the problem can be fixed with an additional pullup resistor, but I don't like adding parts to fix a firmware issue. Once we figured out the cause, the fix was very simple. Tonight I built a test jig to induce the problem and was able to test the fix. All it took was moving two lines of code, and it's now solid and works fine. Needless to say, I'm making the fix available to anyone who needs it free of charge. If you have a PicoKeyer with a silver dot on it, you are welcome to contact me (OFF list, please!) or just send it in for new code. Please be sure to include your return address! I'll cover the return postage. For DX ops, please email me and we'll work out something mutually agreeable. If your keyer works fine and plays back messages without problems, it's up to you whether you want to update your chip or not -- same conditions, it's free of charge. Many thanks to Dean, K4SW for his help in troubleshooting this rather annoying issue, and my apologies to anyone who has had to deal with it. I'm just glad to have a fix available. 73 & TU, Dale - N0XAS -- It's a thankless job, but I've got a lot of Karma to burn off. The NEW Super PicoKeyer offers speed control by pot OR menu! Check http://www.hamgadgets.com for news.
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