The terminal program for CW-operators. You can transmit both from the keyboard and from a paddle connected to serial, game or LPT port. You can also operate in paddle iambic mode. Control of the transceiver (PTT and CW keying) is made through one of the COM or LPT ports. CwType can integrate with AALog software.

Platform: Windows XP/Vista/7/8/10

The author’s program overview

The "TX" button switches the transmitter on. The program transmits chars entered into the bottom window. During transmission, chars move from that window into the Sent Symbols window (upper window). Chars sent by paddle are shown in upper window also.
 
The "Pause" button stops sending pre-typed symbols. Transmitter is left on and you can send symbols via paddle.

In top left-hand corner are speed, dash/dot ratio and inter-letter space adjustments.
If inter-letter space value is below the dash length, then the inter-letter space is defined by dash/dot value. Resultant transmitting speed is shown in the status line in LPM (letters per minute) and WPM (words per minute). Speed is calculated by the "PARIS" method. Hotkeys for speed adjustments are Alt-(keypad plus) or Ctrl-(keypad-plus) and Alt-(keypad minus) or Ctrl-(keypad minus).

There is a sound on/off button in the top right hand corner. Sound can be produced from the internal computer speaker or a sound cord. Sound source is selected in the "Setup/Sound" page.

Sound frequency is defined at the same page. A soundcard generated signal has a sine waveform and a smooth envelope, so it can be used to form a CW signal from a SSB transmitter. The rise and decay time of soundcard generated CW-signals is defined by "Rise/Decay time". It is the time for a signal to rise from a 0 to 100% level in milliseconds. A rise time from 10% to 90% level is about 0.6 of a value defined by this control.

The "Real output sampling rate" value means the real sampling frequency of a sound card.

The "Enable MOX" option on the "Setup/MOX & Paddle" page switches on MOX mode (automatic TX on/off). MOX details are configured in the "MOX Setup" area.

When the "Pause On at paddle press" option is checked, pressing a paddle switches on the "Pause" mode.

When the "Pause Off at Tx Off" option is checked, the "Pause" mode is switched off after the transmitter is off.

The "Paddle in Iambic mode" option switch on the "Iambic" mode (the memory of a unit of a symbol) for paddle handling.

The "Weighting" value is used to eliminate morse elements clipping by some transmitters with QSK. For example, if your transceiver shortens each element by 6 ms, you should use the "6" value. In this case the program sends elements 6 ms longer than normal, and subtracts 6 ms from the spaces between them. If your transceiver extends morse elements, you should use negative weighting, for example "-5".

The "F1"..."F12" buttons (and "F1"..."F12" keyboard keys) are used to transmit previously defined macros. You can also use the "Esc" key and Ctrl-F1...Ctrl-F12, Alt-F1...Alt-F12 combinations. The Alt-F6 combination is available only via mouse. Macros are inserted into the Input window in a place indicated by the cursor. A number of macro buttons can be increased or these buttons can be hidden  by the "Numbers of macros buttons row" control on the "Setup/View" page. Moreover, arrangement and size of these buttons can be changed by the  "Numbers of macros buttons columns" and "Height of macros buttons" controls.

To open the Edit Macros window, click to the "Edit macros" menu item. You can also edit text on macros buttons there. In turn, keyboard macros may contain special character sequences or macrosequences.

In particular, macrosequences can point to edit fields "Call", "Name", "RST" and "Other" located above the Sent Symbols window. The "Clear" button sets those fields to their default values. The default values are defined by parameters "CallOnClear", "RSTOnClear", "NameOnClear", "OtherOnClear" of the CWTYPE.INI file.

Edit fields can be hidden by unchecking the "Show edit fields" option on the "Setup/View" page .

The "Use 'Other' field as" option assigns an alternative meaning to the "Other" edit field. This new meaning is used to capture words from the CwGet software and to transfer data to a logger.

The  "Always on top" option puts CwType in front of all windows.

The "Beacon" button switches on the beacon mode. In this mode the Alt-F12 macro is executed periodically. The period in seconds is defined on the left of the "Beacon" button. The shortcuts for "Beacon" button are Alt-B and Ctrl-B.
If the "Beacon Off at paddle press" option is checked on the "Setup/MOX & Paddle" page, then beacon mode is switched off when a paddle is pressed. Special macrosequences can be used to switch the beacon mode on and off also.

The "File/Send Text File" puts text from selected file into the Input window. That text can also contain macrosequences.

The "File/Open Capture File" menu opens a capture-file for sent symbols. New sent symbols are written into that file. If the file exists, new symbols are appended to it. The "File/Close Capture File" command closes a capture-file. The capture-file state is shown in the status line. The hotkey for capture on/off commands is Alt-L. You can use the command line arguments "/c Filename" to open the capture file at the program startup. "Filename" is name of the file to be opened.

The options "English charset", "Russian charset","Swedish charset" and "User-defined charset" select the alphabet. The "user-defined charset" is setup as a simple  text file - see the  SAMPLE.CWT file for example.

Fonts and colors are selected by controls on the "Setup/Fonts & colors" page.

The program can transfer data to AALog logger (V1.0.3 and later). Data are transferred from the edit field after exiting from it. In turn, "Call",  "Name" and "Other" edit fields can receive data from the CwGet program.

The  "Setup/Other" page includes "Send Mode to logger when CwType starts" and "Send Mode to logger together with callsign" options. If the first option is checked, CwType transfers information about mode (CW) to the logger at the program start. If the second option is checked, CwType transfers information about mode together with information from the "Call" edit field.

The "ExportIniFile" and "ExportIniSection" parameters of the CWTYPE.INI file define another ini-file that is used to transfer data between edit fields and another programs.

The "Tune" menu command sends a continuous key down to tune the transmitter. Hotkey for this command is Alt-U.

Selected options of the program are saved via the "Setup/Save Setup" menu. Options are written into the file CWTYPE.INI . The program looks for this file in the working directory. You can have several variants of the ini-file for different situations (for example, one for ordinary QSO's, and another for contests). Just create several shortcuts to CWTYPE.EXE each with a different working directory.

Most of the screen buttons have keyboard shortcuts.

CwType interfaces with logger software via ini-files and Windows messages.  CwType can also get symbols to transmit from other software by DXSOFTEX.DLL library. See https://www.dxsoft.com/dxs-exch.zip for details about programs co-operation.

Related links

• “Break-In magazine” review of CwGet and CwType .
  http://www.dxsoft.com/en/misc/cw-review/

• WM2U’s review of CwGet and CwType.
  http://www.qsl.net/wm2u/cw.html