• Key Clicks

    From Daryl Stout@316:36/9 to All on Wed Apr 19 00:04:53 2023
    From the Feb. 19, 2019 ARRL Contest E-Letter

    WORD TO THE WISE

    Key Clicks

    Key Clicks are caused by the undesirable and unwanted widening of a
    CW signal, due to energy in the signal's sidebands. Contributing
    factors include the shape of the keying waveform, too-short rise and
    fall times of the transmitted signal, or variation in the carrier
    oscillator frequency.

    Key clicks can sound like thumps or clicks to a receiver tuned with a
    few kHz of the transmitter frequency. Unscrupulous operators have used
    key clicks to their advantage by making adjacent frequencies undesirable
    to use, seeking to gain an unfair advantage in crowded contest
    conditions. This is against the rules of most contests.

    As a side note, it can also get you a notice of violation from either
    an OO (Official Observer, soon to be Virtual Monitor (VM)), or from the
    FCC.
    --- SBBSecho 3.20-Win32
    * Origin: The Thunderbolt BBS - Little Rock, Arkansas (316:36/9)