After I posted my request for a favorite electronic keyer circuit on qrptech@groups.io, my friend Bill K6WHP reminded me that the 1 Watter & 5 Watter transceivers used a nice keyer circuit.
Diz W8DIZ designed his keyer circuit around the ATTINY45 microcontroller.
I robbed the keyer chip from my 1 Watter 30M Transceiver for this experiment. I decided to build this circuit using the manhattan construction style technique.
I took my time and built this circuit over several evenings spending 15 or 20 minutes per session. A college professor once told my class that "Sometimes the journey is more important than the destination." It is fun to build and learn new things and to stop and think along the way.
The keyer works great and I like the iambic B mode the best. I used my favorite LM386 circuit for my amplifier, but I plan on building a discrete amplifier for it just to be different and to learn something new. If you have any favorite discrete amplifier circuits please let me know!
In conclusion, I need to connect the keyer to one of my transceivers and make sure that it will key the transmitter. Give this keyer circuit a try and let me know what you think.
73 for now...
N8WQ
