[CW] FYO Iambic Paddle?

[Mike Hyder -N4NT-]

I bought a single-lever paddle from Joe in about 1962.  Think I paid $25 or
so for the thing.  When I was overseas in 1968 or 1969 I sent him a letter
asking to buy another one.  He must have felt sorry for me being in the Army
in Africa and sent me a sheet showing the specifications of his dual lever
key and I bought one.  I think he just put it together out of parts on hand.
It did not have the name plate and the contact post insulators were not
recessed into the base.  I believe he was long out of the key business by
then but he was nice to accommodate me.

That dual lever FYO key was a most bothersome thing!  Any vertical pressure
on the paddles and it would fall apart.  Generally it was built like a dual
lever Bencher key with a split circle.  The top pivot was just like the
single lever keys, but the bottom pivot was a slot.  When Bencher started
making their dual lever keys, they would fly apart, too.  Bencher got around
this by putting a retaining screw through each of the half circles.  Besides
the bother of the key's falling apart, my mind never could grasp iambic
keying.  I still maintain it is the work of the devil.

I have photos of my single lever FYO key but not of the dual lever key.  I
no longer have the dual lever one but use the single lever one whenever I
use a keyer.  If you'll look on http://www.zianet.com/sparks/eddy.html you
can scroll down and see small photos of the single and dual lever FYO keys.

73, Mike N4NT

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jeff Maass" <jmaass at columbus.rr.com>
To: "Brasspounders Mailing List" <brasspounders at yahoogroups.com>
Cc: "CW Mailing List" <cw at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Wednesday, September 29, 2004 8:55 PM
Subject: [CW] FYO Iambic Paddle?

Folks:

I was having a discussion of FYO paddles and the successors
they inspired (HAL, HAMCO, BencherBY-x, Brass Racer, etc.),
and I said that I recalled hearing someone say that Joe
Hills W8FYO once made a few iambic variants of his paddle
before he stopped making paddles.

Can someone confirm or debunk? Any photos?

I also recall a web site with many, many photos of "Paddles
Through The Ages", but I lost the pointer in a hard disk
crash. Google didn't help.

73,

Jeff Maass  K8ND