PaddleCAT - WinKeyer CW Trainer

Your WinKeyer is now a VBand adapter. Play Morse Invaders, VBand and Vail with your own paddle, with no extra dongle.

PaddleCAT is a free Windows app for practising Morse code with a K1EL WinKeyer and your paddle. Besides playing browser games, it scores your sending, runs drills and simulated QSOs, and has its own arcade game.

_{Play Online  ·  Trainer  ·  PaddleCAT Invaders}

You need: a Windows PC and a K1EL WinKeyer with your paddle plugged in. Tested on a K1EL WK3.1. The original WinKeyer (WK1) and WinKeyer 2 are supported from 1.2.1 but not yet tested on real hardware. If you have one, please tell us how it goes.

Download and install

⬇ Download PaddleCAT for Windows

There's nothing to install. It's a single program file.

1. Click the download link above. If your browser asks, choose Keep. Browsers sometimes flag programs they haven't seen before.
2. Move it somewhere handy (your Desktop is fine), then double-click PaddleCAT to open it.
3. The first time only, Windows may show a blue "Windows protected your PC" box. This appears because the app is new and from a small independent developer, not because anything is wrong. Click More info, then Run anyway. You won't see it again.
4. Plug in your WinKeyer and click Connect at the top of the app. If it can't find the keyer, click Detect first.
5. Fill in your callsign and name on the Profile tab, then pick a tab and start sending.

To update later, download the file again from the same link and replace the old one. Your profile and high scores are kept.

To remove it, delete the file.

Play Morse Invaders, VBand and Vail

1. Click Connect at the top of PaddleCAT.
2. On the Play Online tab, pick your game and click Open game. PaddleCAT sets the right keys for it.
3. In the game, set the input to paddle / iambic (the tab tells you the exact setting), click into the game, and send.

Your paddle types into the game only while the Play Online tab is open. Switch to another tab and PaddleCAT pauses keyboard output, so it never types into the wrong window.

What's included

Trainer. The app shows you a line of CW to send, you send it on your paddle, and it scores you. It reads the WinKeyer's own decode, so the score matches what you hear in the sidetone.

• Drill categories: Calling CQ, Contest Exchange, POTA, Rag Chew, Q-Codes & Phrases, Common Abbreviations, callsigns, numbers, park IDs, English words.
• Drill mode (lines advance automatically once you send them correctly) and Sprint mode (60-second timer with a best score per category).
• Adaptive WPM, a live streak counter, and your measured sending speed.
• Prosigns count whether you send them merged or letter-spaced, including BK. Send HH (8 dits) to wipe a botched attempt.

QSO Simulator. The WinKeyer sends the other station's side through its sidetone, and you answer on your paddle. Scenarios include short and full rag chews, POTA hunter and activator, and a contest search-and-pounce QSO.

PaddleCAT Invaders. Words, Q-codes, callsigns and numbers fall from the sky, and you shoot one down by keying it. Seven content mixes, each with its own high score.

Play Online. Turns your paddle into keystrokes for browser CW games, with one-click setup for Morse Invaders, VBand and Vail. Under Advanced settings you can pick your own keys or switch modes:

• Paddle mode (the default): the two levers become two keys, and the game does the iambic timing.
• Keyer mode: PaddleCAT does the iambic timing on one key, with speed set by a slider or the WinKeyer's speed knob. Set the game to straight-key input.

Profile. Enter your callsign, name, QTH, state, rig and antenna, and the drills fill them in for you.

If something isn't working

• Detect doesn't find the WinKeyer. Unplug the USB cable, plug it back in, wait a few seconds and click Detect again. Make sure the keyer is plugged directly into the PC, not through an unpowered hub.
• "Port is in use". Another program is using the WinKeyer, usually your logging or rig-control software. Close that program and click Detect again. PaddleCAT releases the keyer when you click Disconnect or close it, so your other programs can use it again.
• Windows blocked the download or won't open it. See step 1 and step 3 above: choose Keep, then More info → Run anyway.
• Nothing happens in a browser game. Keep PaddleCAT on the Play Online tab, click inside the game window so it's listening for keys, and check that the game's input setting matches step 2 on that tab.

Still stuck? Open an issue and describe what you see.

Your next steps

• Drill anywhere: take your practice to your phone with MorseCAT, which is built for short CW drills whenever you have a spare minute.
• Get on the air: once your fist is ready, POTACAT lets you operate your own radio remotely, from anywhere.

PaddleCAT, MorseCAT and POTACAT all come from the same maker.

For developers

Run from source (Python 3.10+):

python -m pip install -r requirements.txt
python winkeyer_app.py

Build the standalone .exe with build.bat. It writes dist\PaddleCAT.exe.

How it works: the app puts the WinKeyer into WK3 mode and turns on its Paddle Status report (X2MODE bit 7). The keyer then reports raw lever state over USB (1200 baud), and the app injects keystrokes through the Windows SendInput API. Scoring uses the WinKeyer's paddle echo, which is decoded in firmware. An app-side decoder (morse_decode.py) adds merged BK, the HH wipe and a measured-WPM estimate. Sending is comfortable up to about 20–25 WPM.

The app reads the chip's revision byte and adapts. A WinKeyer 2 uses WK2 mode and its own paddle-status bit. The original WinKeyer 1 can't report its levers, so the app polls its Paddle A2D diagnostic (Admin 5), about 50 readings a second, and maps the paddle voltage to dit/dah. On WK1 the app's decoder does the scoring, and the keyer's own settings are put back when you stop.

winkeyer_vail.py is also a command-line diagnostic tool:

python winkeyer_vail.py detect
python winkeyer_vail.py monitor --port COM3

73!