Setting Up FT-710 for CW Operations
I was a regular CW DX operator a few decades back, out of sheer necessity. The 3 x 807 vacuum tube radio I had homebrewed then was CW/AM and had no provision for SSB. With only a dipole antenna, I could not dream of working DX without CW. When I took my grade 1 license and later advanced grade license, Morse code was mandatory for those grades. So I was having fair CW sending and receiving speeds. Fast forward to 2024, lack of use over decades has brought down my CW sending and receiving skills to bear minimum. Moreover I have never used CW keyer paddles. Now I have a keyer paddle, but no straight key which I was familiar with. My FT-710 has a built-in CW keyer. All I have to do is plug in the paddles to the 3.5 mm key socket at the back of the radio and setup the radio for using CW keyer paddles.
From the mode switch at the top of the radio, CW-L or CW-U mode can be selected as needed. I was told that convention followed is just as LSB and USB. For 7 MHz CW-L has to be selected and for 14 MHz and above CW-U has to be selected. FT-710 manual mentions CW injection is in upper side band, though the radio has both CW-L and CW-U. Probably they meant higher bands which are usually used for CW DX operations.
Keyer has to be switched on using the function knob and choosing Keyer On in the display. Monitor level can be selected and adjusted as needed for ones convenience of hearing. I chose higher level because of high background noise in this region. CW pitch is 700 Hz as default and I did not want to change it as it seemed comfortable for me. CW keyer speed can be adjusted from the display and I thought of relearning at 10 words per minute, though I had much higher speeds earlier with straight key. I am yet to practise with the keyer paddles. As you may be aware pressing one paddle sends out a series of ‘dits’ while pressing the other sends out a series of ‘dahs’. Tried keeping the CW speed at 5 wpm. Then the length of ‘dahs’ seemed uncomfortably long!
There a selection on the display for BK-IN. If that is kept off, one can practise CW in the radio without sending out the signals. If that is switched on, the signals will go out, which can be confirmed by seeing the lighting up of the Busy/TX red light above the tuning knob. If the meter dial has been set to display Power, it will also show the needle deflection indicating power output for each ‘dit’ and ‘dah’. Of course, a very sure way of practising without sending out RF signals is by removing the antenna from the SO 239 socket.
Keying by mistake with BK-IN on and antenna disconnected will cause HI-SWR to light up. But modern software defined radios will automatically shut down the RF output to prevent damage to RF final stages in case of antenna disconnection. I have just learned preliminary details of how to setup my radio for CW operations. There are more parameters in ‘CW Settings’, which I have not meddled with at present. Now the more difficult task is to practise sending with paddles and receiving for which I am looking forward to support from ardent CW operators out there who are ready to send and receive at slow speed to start with. Though currently there are options to send using keyboard and decode with programs like Fldigi (short for Fast light digital), I wish to relearn my lost CW skills.