What is a Morse keyer, and do you need one?
A Morse keyer is the part that turns paddles into Morse. Hold one paddle and it sends a run of perfectly even dits; hold the other and it sends dahs; each at the speed you set, with exactly one unit of silence between them. You need a keyer if you send with paddles. You do not need one with a straight key, because there your hand does all the timing.
A paddle by itself is just two switches. Without a keyer behind it, nothing times its dits and dahs.
What a keyer actually does
Morse timing is built on one unit, the length of a dit. A dah is 3 units, the gap inside a character 1 unit, the gap between characters 3 and the gap between words 7. Speed sets the length of the unit: at W words per minute a dit lasts 1200 divided by W milliseconds.
A keyer does that arithmetic so your hand does not have to. Set it to 20 WPM and this is what you get:
| While you hold | The keyer sends | Each element | Silence after each |
|---|---|---|---|
| The dit paddle | dits, one after another | 60 ms | 60 ms |
| The dah paddle | dahs, one after another | 180 ms | 60 ms |
| Both levers of a dual-lever paddle | dits and dahs, alternating | 60 or 180 ms | 60 ms |
A keyer also finishes every element it starts. Let go halfway through a dah and you still get a full dah. That is why keyer-sent Morse sounds so even: the elements and the gaps inside each character are always right.
What a basic keyer does not do is space your letters and words. The 3-unit gap between characters and the 7-unit gap between words are still yours, made by how long you wait before the next letter. So spacing is where a keyer operator’s mistakes show up, and it is why a keyer does not erase your style of sending, your fist. Your fist in Morse code goes into what that means and how to improve it.
Paddle, keyer, radio
On the air, the chain runs from paddle to keyer to transmitter. The keyer can live in several places:
- Inside the radio. Many radios built for CW have a keyer built in. The paddle plugs straight into the radio, and the speed and other keyer settings live in its menus or on a knob.
- In a separate box between the paddle and the radio, with its own controls and often more features.
- In software, where a program on a computer reads the paddle and does the timing.
For practice without a radio, the keyer drives a sidetone: a plain tone you hear in place of a transmitted signal. You need a license to transmit on the amateur bands, but not to learn, to practice, or to own a keyer and paddles.
What keyers do beyond timing
Beyond sending elements, keyers often offer:
- Speed control, usually in WPM, on a knob or in a menu.
- Iambic mode A or B, which decides what happens when you let go of a squeeze on a dual-lever paddle. Iambic keying explained: mode A vs mode B covers the difference and why it matters which one your hand learns.
- Weighting. The standard dit to dah ratio is 1 to 3; weighting lengthens or shortens the elements against the gaps for a heavier or lighter sound. Dit to dah ratio and weighting in Morse code explains when anyone would change it.
- Memories. A memory keyer stores messages and sends one at the press of a button: a CQ call, your callsign, or a contest exchange such as 5NN and a number. Some can also repeat a message with a pause between sends, which suits calling CQ.
- A sidetone of its own, so you can hear what you send.
Memories are for repetition, not conversation. The CQ you have sent forty times this evening is a fine job for a button. The back and forth of an ordinary contact is still sent by hand.
Which keys need a keyer?
Not every key does. The difference is who does the timing:
| Key | Needs a keyer? | Who times the dits | Who times the dahs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Straight key | No | You | You |
| Sideswiper (cootie) | No | You | You |
| Bug (semi-automatic key) | No | The bug’s swinging arm | You |
| Single-lever paddle | Yes | The keyer | The keyer |
| Dual-lever paddle | Yes | The keyer | The keyer |
A straight key is a switch you hold closed for each element, so the timing is entirely your hand’s. A sideswiper is the same idea turned on its side, with one lever pushed left and right. A bug does half a keyer’s job mechanically: push its lever one way and a weighted arm swings to make a string of dits by itself; push it the other way and you form each dah by hand. What is a bug? goes into the mechanism.
Do you need one?
It depends on how you want to send:
- You are learning, with no radio yet. No hardware at all. Learn the characters by ear and practice sending on whatever you have, a straight key and a practice oscillator, or a computer.
- You use a straight key, a sideswiper or a bug. No keyer. If your radio has one built in, its manual will say whether and how it takes a straight key.
- You use paddles. Yes, always. You may already own one: check whether your radio has a keyer built in before buying a separate box.
- You want stored messages for contests or for calling CQ. A memory keyer, built in or separate.
So the question is really about the paddle. A paddle needs a keyer; every other kind of key carries its own timing, in your hand or in its mechanism.
Keying on a Mac
On a computer, software can play the keyer’s part. Dot & Dash does: its paddles are two keys, Left Option for dits and Right Option for dahs by default, “timed for you at your speed”, in iambic mode A or B, at the speed you set anywhere from 5 to 40 WPM. Its straight key (Space, or the knob on the machine drawn on screen) has no keyer at all: Dot & Dash reads your keying at your own pace and learns the length of your dit as you go. A USB Morse key or keyer that types a keyboard key also works, as many do; you choose that key in Settings.
Questions
Is a keyer the same as a paddle?
No. The paddle is the pair of levers you press. The keyer is the electronics, in the radio, in a separate box or in software, that turns those presses into timed dits and dahs.
Do I need a keyer to learn Morse code?
No. You can learn the code by ear and practice sending with a straight key, or on a computer, with no keyer at all. You need one only when you send with paddles.
Does a keyer space my letters and words?
A basic keyer does not. It times the dits, the dahs and the gaps inside each character, but the gaps between characters and words come from when you start the next one.