My Third Modification

Since learning Morse code is a slow process (for me anyway), I decided to use the "CW Type" software to send Morse code. That required to somehow connect the Pixie transceiver to the computer. My computer does not have a serial port and I did not want to mess around with USB to Serial adapters. Therefore, I designed a small circuit that activates the key (PTT) of the Pixie transceiver using the soundcard speaker output of the computer. Here is the circuit:

The Soundcard to PTT (or key) interface. It works really well even with the low output levels of the headphone connector of my smartphone.

Here is the layout of a printed circuit board:

Printed Circuit Board (PCB) layout

Position of parts on the PCB

I was too lazy to etch a PCB and decided to build the circuit the ugly way. Really the circuit is so simple that a PCB is not really necessary:

My soundcard to Pixie PTT (key) interface. I did not go through the process of etching the PCB shown above.

The circuit works really well. Now I can use the "CW Type" software to send Morse Code with my Pixie transceiver. The next step will be to fit both the pixie and the soundcard interface in an Altoid box.