Hopefully we'll have as much fun as Clark and Ellen!

We will be visiting Germany for several days in August.  Our itinerary has us tentatively in Berlin at Box 73 Gmbh on Wednesday and/or Thursday,  25/26 August.  Then we will be in Frankfurt at Difona Communications on Friday the 27th.  If you are in the Berlin, Frankfurt or Nuremberg areas, we’d love to meet you!

The RSS feed icon

Did you know you don’t have to check this page to see when something new is posted?  Most modern web browsers can take advantage of RSS feeds.  In Firefox, for example, you can get “Live bookmarks”, or a button along the top of your browser window that automatically tracks changes to a web page.  You can click the button and see a list of new and old articles, and if you want to see one just click it — you’ll be there!  This news blog has a feed available, as does ARRL, and many other web sites.

Of course I also have PicoKeyer-Plus kits available assembled and tested.  Oh, and I fixed a problem with the comments so you can post comments again, sorry for the broken link.

Below is a list of new or changed features and bugfixes in 1.22.

FEATURES:

• Prints firmware version as part of help menu
• Command prompt on terminal when not in host KB mode (no need for / in front of commands now)
• Added dot & dash priority key modes (E & T)
• Keyboard sending can be paused using PAUSE key.  PAUSE or ENTER will resume sending.  From the PC host, CTRL-S and CTRL-Q will work as they should.
• CTRL-BACKSPACE will delete the previous word when sending or recording a message from the USB keyboard.
• NUM LOCK state of USB keyboard is preserved.
• CTRL-P (PROSIGN) lets you merge two characters from the keyboard (host or USB mode)
• The same message can now be stacked multiple times
• Added improved straight key support (requires hardware mod), enabled/disabled by XE command.
• Added “helper” dits to indicate word space during message recording (command I)
• Memory recording from USB keyboard can be ended with any F-key

BUGFIXES:

• Loading settings from USB would set some parameters incorrectly, at least some of the time
• Monitor (M) setting could be corrupted if changed from serial terminal
• Fixed terminal mode D command to set both precomp and prefirst
• Added indication of EEPROM read during power-up tests to indicate if a bad EEPROM chip is found
• Bank 6 can no longer be selected (since it’s not there)
• Button press will now terminate beacon mode
• Improved paddle setup for 2-parameter settings (D, R, etc)
• Fixed LED colors while recording msg 3 & 6 in keyboard mode
• Support for hardware mod to fix issue with Vibroplex  dual key

Many thanks to all of you who have contributed your time and input – LOTS of input! – to make this release possible.  Special thanks to Bill W2RST, Peter SM5HUA, Chuck  K2VPZ, Dar W9HZC, Joe  K0NEB, Nate N0NB and the rest of you bug hunters and idea men! (and if I missed your name/call, I apologize – so many contributed ideas for this release!)

Yesterday morning, I accidentally deleted the entire content of the web site.  All of it.  It was a simple mistake; much simpler than it should have been, in fact.  I guess I shouldn’t be making updates before I’ve finished my second cup of coffee.  I didn’t panic too badly, knowing that the irreplaceable data — the databases — were intact and backed up at least daily.  I also thought I had all of the web content backed up.  That turned out not to be the case…I quickly found that the web content, the actual HTML and PHP files, were not as current as I thought they were.  My backup routine was (as I now know) not backing up everything that I thought it was.  So, I called my web hosting provider, knowing that they back up nightly and could quickly restore the content.

Sure, they can restore it — for a hefty fee.  Since I have been a loyal, long time customer, my stuff is on an older server that they have not bothered to update with the automated restore option that would let me restore the backup files myself, for free, immediately.  It would cost me, I was told, in the 3-figure range.  After struggling for a few hours I finally agreed to pay their fee, and only after the fee was collected was I told it “could take up to 24 hours”.  Great.  Never mind that, had I been a new customer, I could have simply clicked a button to automatically restore the files from the previous night’s backup, at no cost.

Well, a day later with no files restored, I called the support line again.  Now they tell me their normal time to restore files from a backup is 7 to 10 days.  Seriously, I’m not making this up.  Now, I used to be responsible for the team that handled  server backups and restores at a fairly well known technology company.  I have also been the guy responsible for restoring files and entire filesystems to servers when the application team needed it done.  Restoring a file from backup should take no more than an hour or two, and that’s if your server admins are really busy.  I ended up restoring what I had, fixing a number of minor problems and as of this evening am working to re-create or locate a few missing image files.

All in all, this has been the worst customer service experience I have had in years.  This company has managed to turn me from a loyal, happy, long-term customer into an unsatisfied soon-to-be-ex customer who will now actively discourage anyone who asks from doing business with them.  And for what?  What would it have cost them to have someone restore the files I needed?  Zero.  Not a penny.

Having a good product is important.  Having good customer service is even more important.  I try to remind myself of that often.

• LED colors while recording and playing back some messages while in keyboard mode have been fixed.
• You can now stack the same message more than once.  Tapping the same button multiple times will result in that message being sent multiple times.

As always, I’m very interested in hearing your impressions and experiences — good or bad — with this Beta release.  I’d like to finalize this version by the end of the month.

Download the updated file here…

New or changed features:

• Prints the firmware version as part of the help menu
• Command prompt on terminal when not in host KB mode
• No need to type ‘/’ before commands in terminal mode
• Added dot & dash priority key modes (E & T).  These work much like Ultimatic; when both paddles are held closed, either dots (Mode E) or dashes (Mode T) will be sent instead of alternating dots and dashes.
• Keyboard sending can be paused using PAUSE key (USB keyboard only).  PAUSE or ENTER will resume sending.
• From either the PC host or the USB keyboard, CTRL-S and CTRL-Q will work as they should to pause and resume sending.
• CTRL-BACKSPACE will delete the previous word when sending or recording a message from the USB keyboard.
• The NUM LOCK state of USB keyboard is preserved after power off or reset.
• CTRL-P (PROSIGN) lets you merge any two Morse characters from the  keyboard in either host or USB mode.

BUGFIXES:

• Loading settings from USB would set some parameters  incorrectly, at least some of the time
• Monitor (M) setting could be corrupted if changed from serial terminal
• Fixed terminal mode D command to set both precomp and prefirst
• Bank 6 can no longer be selected (since it does not exist)
• Any button press will now terminate beacon mode
• When using “stacked” memories (pressing buttons in sequence to send more than one message), there was no word space between the first and second message.  This has been fixed.
• Setting two-parameter settings (like R, D, etc) from the paddles is now easier and more reliable.

If you wish to participate in the BETA test phase, you can download a ZIP file with the firmware, updated manual and installation notes here.  Please email me with any problems, errors or comments.

I will soon be shipping Rev B of the ID-O-Matic II. No big changes, just a couple of component values are different and a couple of minor PCB errors corrected. I’ve also started introducing pre-assembled kits, beginning with the PicoKeyer-Plus. I plan to add the UKA-2 and ID-O-Matic II in the near future.

And lastly, one of the reasons we’ve been so busy: Say hello to Burke Thomas Wissman, our first grandchild!  He was born this afternoon.  Mom and baby are doing fine, but everyone involved (including grandparents) are exhausted.  Now, I’m going to grab a quick nap and finish a couple of furniture refinishing projects so the nursery can be ready!

Ain't he cute?