[Boatanchors] Ranger1 w/ keyer? (part-2)

[corner five]

First off, thankyou for the input regarding options for keying my 
Ranger-1.  I attended a local hamfest recently and picked up a HK5A 
keyer by Ham Keyer.  This should handle the 50v grid block needs fine.  
No memories, but that's ok.  My code speed is slow anyways.

Part two of this is ... I am looking for ideas around the break-in 
aspects.  As is (Ranger default) a CW QSO requires the OP to physically 
move the "operate" switch back and forth between "standby" and "cw" for 
each exchange.   Manual  break-in.  Simple and effective.

However, I may be too cautions here but this seems like it might be 
rough on this switch over the years.  Even if not, my question is for 
ideas of alternate ways to toggle between Tx and Rx.

A few of my thoughts:
1)  Run a foot pedal (or other physical switch) in parallel with the 
Ranger's Operate switch to do the physical switching.  I dont know if 
this is practical, as this switch is multi-pole, and appears to switch a 
number of things between these two positions.  Here I am not totally clear.
2)  Or some method to get me to semi-break-in.  Of course this 
transmitter has no VOX that is often employed for this path.

I'm not really wanting to get into making an elaborate / expensive 
interface from scratch, but perhaps there are kits available?  Or even a 
small PIC type idea?

In the end, I'm good with manual break-in if that's the way to go. Semi 
break-in would be a nice want.
thanks. c5.