Most base-type radios, especially HF radios, have keyer circuitry
built in. On those radios where it has been optional (Icom 970, e.g.),
it has been a fairly expensive option. Can anyone estimate the amount
that it adds to the price of an HF radio? What would we save if it were
left off? Considering the ever shrinking role of Morse, does it really
make sense to insist that all HF radios include it? It almost seems as
if the various manufacturers are afraid to go first in making it an
option. It seems like it is more of an ideological issue than a
practical one.

My guess is that the actual bill-of-materials needed to include a
basic keyer into the design of a new transceiver design is no more
than $5, and quite possibly less.

Assuming that the transceiver has a jack for a straight key, you can
add a basic iambic keyer with nothing more than a second jack, a very
small microcontroller (e.g. a PIC costing a dollar at most) and some
wiring.

In transceivers that are already microprocessor-controlled (which is
most of the new ones, I think) the iambic-keyer and memory functions
can be rolled into the code of the existing micro... so all you really
need to add is a jack, wiring, and the additional programming logic.

So, the incremental cost of adding one should be quite small.

Keyers with a much larger memory, beaconing functions, etc. might
require more hardware... but these days you can pack a *lot* of code
and memory into a tiny little 6- or 8-pin surface-mount microcontroller.

--
Dave Platt AE6EO
Friends of Jade Warrior home page: http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
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