XIEGU X6100 QRP Rig

I saw a new X6100 at WFD.  Nice radio - I may have to try one.  But don't be so down on the FT-817/818's.  The 817 was designed 20 years ago and is quite good for small compact QRP rig.  And they have 2m/440 all-mode which is quite handy when mountain topping - especially back east where there are a lot of guys on 2m SSB.  I find myself taking my FT817 backpacking more than my KX2 because it has 2m/440.

73 Dave kx3dx

I carry an ht for 2m/70cm.

It's a great little radio.  I've made voice contacts with Japan, Spain, Italy and South America on 5 W battery only.  Conditions have been great.

73. KØTNG Randy

I bought a new Xiegu x6100 back in April of this year.  I'm interested in QRP, POTA and SOTA.  After buying a new antenna, Chameleon LEFS, I set out for Chatfield State Park last week on one of our fantastic late fall days.  I headed over to the south pools parking lot and backed into a spot where I wouldn't be in anyone's way and went about setting things up.  I plugged my radio in an was amazed at the reception.  This was my first try with my new radio and antenna setup.  Forty meters was very active with CW.  I rolled up on a SOTA CQ, got excited as this would be the first contact I've made on this radio.  When I plugged in my key, I immediately got a solid tone coming over my internal speaker.  I thought maybe there was a problem with the key, so I disconnected it and plugged in the cord.  Still got the same solid tone coming over the speaker.  

So, my question to any 6100 users.  Am I doing something wrong?  Have any of you experienced this?  I'm a pretty new operator so I may have missed the obvious.  

Any assistance would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Joe

KF0CEH

Joe,

Not an X6100 owner, but I suspect it is either a bad cable on your key or a setting on the radio.

I'm sending you an email to the address listed in our directory.  We'll get it figured out.

73,

Dana NN0G

Thanks for your response, Dana.  I got in touch with the tech people at Radioddity and they responded very quickly.  I was using a 2-conductor cord attached to my straight key.  According to the tech I need to use a 3 conductor TRS 1/8" 3.5mm plug when using a straight key.  Wire the left and right speaker leads together, use that for one leg, and the shield for the other.  Haven't attempted this yet need to buy the new cord.  More to follow, will keep you and PRA updated.

This makes sense. I had a similar issue when I first plugged a key into my FT-100D. If you use a "mono" or TS plug, then essentially, from the point of view of the jack, R & S are shorted together, thus connecting either the dit or dah. For a straight key, you want T & R (i.e. dit and dah) shorted together. Also, don't forget to turn off iambic mode in the radio. Come to think of it, you probably don't need to tie T & R together, as long as R & S aren't tied. When not using iambic mode, either contact inside the radio should work, but possibly in firmware it's set up to ignore one or the other, thought that would seem odd to me. But you never know what sort of stuff an engineer will dream up.

You got me curious. My recollection is that the FT-100D will work with a mono plug if iambic is turned off. Don't have it handy here to try that out. What I currently have connected to my straight key is a mono plug.

Got my TRS plug installed and everything is now working as it should.  Looking forward to getting on the air.