[CW] cw keys, favourites

[ve1ex@ve3kyz.ampr.org]

Hello, merry xmas all: Been enjoying the talk of peoples favourite cw
sending implements.  I have had a license since 1987, for about the first
10 years I used a viking straight "Master" key.  It was deformed, had some
screw holes in it that were not quite right, and often went out of adjustment.
A royal pain in the posteriour when you are working a rare one.
I got my hands on another key of the same type which had no defects, other
than the occasional drop of wd40 to keep it limbered up, it works great.
A friend gave me and old set of viking squeeze paddles, I had a heck of
a time getting used to a set of paddles and a keyer, being on a sk so long.
I find that I use the paddles a lot now, especially on faster speeds.
I have also been known to use the up/down buttons on the mike of my
ic 706mkii to send cw, but that is only good for speeds up to about
25 wpm.  Have an old rail road sk that my uncle gave me years ago, this
seems to work pretty good, but cannot tell you the name of it, is just a
serial number on in it, it is brass and has a navy knob on it, a little bent
up, but seems to work better than my original viking.  Yes there are lots of
lovely keys and paddles out there, enought to make you drewl.  ikeep thinking
that one of these years I have one of those lovely beauties, perhaps this year
my rigs will keep working long enough to allow me to save the money to grab
a higher model key or bug.  Oh, had a himound bug, but could not seem to keep
it in adjustment.  Turns out I had it put together wrong!  As you may guess I
am not all that mechanically inclined!   73   Andrew "Jed" Bowlby