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flwkey

Control panel for the Winkeyer hardware CW keyer

What it does

Configures and drives a K1EL Winkeyer or compatible: speed, weighting, sidetone, paddle mode and the message memories, plus a text panel for sending. It exposes the same over XML-RPC so fldigi and the suite's logging programs can send CW through the hardware keyer.

Why you would want it

A Winkeyer keys with hardware timing, which is the fix for the problem cwdaemon's manifest describes: software keying through a USB serial adapter sounds fine at 15 wpm and falls apart at 30. If you have the hardware, this is how it gets configured on Linux, and the memories are far easier to set here than through the device itself.

Before it will work

A Winkeyer, on serial or USB, and access to its device -- the dialout group. The keyer's own firmware version matters: older units do not support every setting the panel offers.

How it installs

  • source (autotools) from https://w1hkj.org/files/flwkey/flwkey-1.2.4.tar.gz
  • build dependencies: build-essential, pkg-config, libfltk1.3-dev
  • Build dependencies are MEASURED, not copied. Built in a Debian 13 container on 2026-08-28 with build-essential, pkg-config and libfltk1.3-dev and nothing else: configure exits 0, make exits 0, and the binary appears. AHRL lists extra packages for some of these (libpng-dev and libxft-dev for flcluster, libsamplerate0-dev for flnet); they are not needed, because libfltk1.3-dev already pulls what the build uses. This is the same over-specification the fldigi manifest records for libportaudio-ocaml-dev. The sha256 is ours. Upstream publishes checksums for its Windows installers only -- w1hkj.org/files/sha256vals.txt lists .exe files and no source tarballs -- so this digest was computed from the tarball fetched from the project's own site on 2026-08-28. It pins the exact bytes that were reviewed and built, which is the guarantee actually on offer; it is not an upstream signature and this manifest does not imply one.

Binaries this produces:

  • src/flwkey

Known problems

Winkeyer clones vary in firmware fidelity and a setting that appears to do nothing is usually the clone rather than the software. The device can be held by only one program at a time, so this and a logging program both trying to key it will conflict. Not packaged on any target. Debian carries libflxmlrpc-dev at 0.1.4 and this build asks pkg-config for flxmlrpc >= 1.0.1, so the system library is NOT used: configure falls back to the copy bundled in the tarball and its summary line reads "Have flxmlrpc library ....... internal lib". Measured, not inferred. Installing libflxmlrpc-dev alongside would change nothing, which is why it is not a build dependency here.

Keeping it current

  • probe: none
  • strategy: rebuild
  • W1HKJ releases irregularly and announces on the linuxham list rather than through a tagged repository, so there is nothing to probe automatically. Check w1hkj.org/files/flwkey/ when something else in the suite moves.

Where to get help with the software itself

The W1HKJ suite. The linuxham group on groups.io is where questions are answered. Note that Debian's Homepage field for the packaged members of this suite points at w1hkj.com, which now redirects to an unrelated site -- .org is the project.

Source: catalog/packages/flwkey.yaml