HamGadgets News

Beginning this week, I am making a change to how the USB Universal Rig Interface kit is sold.  From now on, all of these kits will be sold with the chip and USB connector pre-installed.  This will allow me to test each board before it leaves here.  It also will avoid having to keep separate stocks of kits with and without the parts pre-installed.  The rig-side connector will not be pre-soldered, but although it is SMT it’s not a challenge to install due to the large, easily accesible pads.

I am also adjusting the price – higher than the base kit, but lower than the SMD pre-install price.  Cable prices will remain the same, though the cost of the 4-conductor rig cables has gone up sharply from what  I had been paying before.

I have released V1.03 of the MasterKeyer firmware.  This is a minor update, no new functionality is added.  You may want to just wait for the next release unless you specifically want the following fixes:

• Keyer sidetone during command mode now does not change when using the A command (set audio sidetone).  This is to avoid any possible confusion with the audio tone shifting while trying to set the tone.  The keyer now also correctly reports the setting.
• The edit message command (/E) from the PC was not working right.  Message display was limited to the first 64 characters.

The next release should be ready some time in June, and will add some significant new functionality.  I have no firm release date yet.

The firmware is available for download, and can be installed from a USB drive using the simple update procedure found in the manual.  All of your settings and messages will be left intact after the upgrade.