Message keys & voice keyer

What they are

A row of twelve keys right under the entry row. On phone (SSB, FM, AM) they play your recorded CQ, exchange and thanks - one key each.

• A set is a plain text file, in the style of N1MM's message editor. You can paste one in, give it to another station, or keep it with your contest files.
• Keys keep their place: F7 is always F7.
• For CW and RTTY, use Key Master's own macros instead. They have their own sets.

# F-key, caption, comma, what it does.  <> do something, {} fill something in.
F1 CQ,CQ.wav
F2 His Call,<PLAY CALL.wav>
F3 Exch,<PLAY EXCH.wav>
F4 My Call,<PLAY MYCALL.wav>
F6 TU,<PLAY TU.wav><LOG>
F7 Mem 1,<CATHEX FE FE 98 E0 28 00 01 FD>   # IC-7610 voice memory 1
F8 Mem 1,<CATASC PB01;>                    # the same on a Yaesu
F9 Split,<SPLIT +1000>
F12 Wipe,<WIPE>

Sets

Right-click any key to pick a set or open the editor. Make one set per contest, per mode or per radio - as you like.

• Every set file in the messages folder shows up in the menu.
• New, copy, rename, delete, import and export are in the editor. The right-click menu only chooses.
• The last set cannot be deleted.
• Export all… writes every set to a folder, ready to copy to another PC.

The editor

Two tabs, showing the same set:

• Keys - a box per key: its caption, its colour and its message. Clear empties the whole key; the caption goes back to - (unused).
• File - the set as plain text. A change on one tab shows on the other.

Underneath is the list of tags, with what each one fills in or does.

Voice recorder… at the top of the editor opens the recorder.

Tags: braces fill in, angle brackets act

A tag is a word in brackets inside a message. Braces { } fill something in; angle brackets < > do something.

A tag the program does not know is left in the text as it is, so a typing mistake is easy to spot.

Playing a recording

• Recordings are WAV files, kept in Documents\ShackAssistant\UserFiles\<CALL>\wav\. The recorder saves them there and the tag looks for them there.
• The file plays over the voice keyer's sound card, which you pick under Settings → Audio - and that is the only thing on that tab. A recording is not a keyed tone: it can come off a different card at a different level, and on a radio with a second audio input that is exactly how a voice keyer is wired, so it names its own card rather than following Key Master's.
• PTT (the transmitter's push-to-talk) is held for exactly as long as the recording plays. If the file is not there, the transmitter is not keyed.
• A name can include a folder: <PLAY PACC\CQ.wav> plays from a subfolder of your WAV folder, so each contest can have its own recordings. A name without a folder is not looked for in subfolders.

Pressing a button on the radio

A message key can send a CAT command (the radio's own control language) straight to the radio. Use this to start the radio's own voice memories or change a menu setting. Look up the command in your radio's manual.

• <CATHEX FE FE 98 E0 28 00 01 FD> - hexadecimal, as Icom writes its CI-V commands. 0x, \0x or no prefix at all are all accepted.
• <CATASC PB01;> - plain text, as Yaesu, Kenwood and Elecraft write their commands.
• The key shows what the radio answered. If an Icom answers FA (“no good”), you see that it refused.
• The command is sent as you typed it, and not checked. For an Icom, make sure the CI-V address in it is your radio's.
• If a tag cannot be read, nothing on that key is sent.

Stopping

Esc stops both:

• The recording ShackAssistant is playing. PTT drops with it.
• The radio's own voice memory, if a key started one. This works on Icom, Yaesu, Kenwood and Elecraft without any setup.

The voice recorder

Click Voice recorder… at the top of the Message Editor. Record your CQ and your exchange, clean them up and save them - all in one window.

Input

• Pick your microphone and set its level. Keep the peaks below the top of the meter, so the recording does not clip (distort).

Recording

• R records, P plays, Esc stops, Ctrl+S saves.
• Playback has its own sound card, so you can listen back on your speakers. It never goes on the air.

Processing - four sliders, and the waveform redraws under each

Silence below / Keep padding	What counts as silence, and how much of it to keep at the start and end. Auto trim finds where your speech starts and stops. Drag the two orange lines to set it by hand; moving either slider switches back to auto trim.
Peak target / Loudness	Sets the level, by peak or by loudness, to a target in dBFS (0 is the loudest possible). Every message then comes out equally loud, however close you sat to the microphone.
Compression (ratio, threshold)	Brings the loud parts down so the whole message can come up: more punch on SSB. Ratio 1:1 is off.
80 Hz high-pass	Removes rumble and desk thumps.

The line under the waveform shows what was done.

Saving

Save asks where, starting in your own WAV folder. Afterwards it tells you which tag plays the file - or that you need the full path, if you saved it somewhere else.

If Key Master's decoder is using the same sound card, the recorder cannot open it and tells you so.

Per operator

• Message sets and macros come from your own operator folder. If you have none, the shared Default is used. Editing a shared set saves your own copy; the shared one stays as it is.
• Recordings are never taken from the shared folder, because a recording has a callsign in it. If your own file is missing, nothing is played and you are told so. So each operator records his own messages.

Switching operators is one button on the main window - see Station setup.