[CW] How To Send with a Sideswiper

David Ring n1ea at arrl.net
Sun Jun 8 12:08:58 EDT 2008


Want to Send with a Sideswiper or Cootie Key?  Here's how!  This comes
complete with easy ways to try out a cootie key and a recording to
help you find one of these keys on the air.

Here are two ways of trying cootie key without much work are given below:

1. The bug rubber band method. Tie the vibrator to the damper with a
rubber band, readjust the dot contact adjustment to produce a good
steady contact. This (of course!) is reversable.

2. Take a single lever paddle, short the dot/dash contact posts with a
wire. Plug key into straight key jack.

If you've never spotted the rare cootie key, either the wild or
domesticated species, a recording is here:
http://mikea.ath.cx/www.n1ea.coastalradio.org.uk/cootie_sending.mp3
(It is of me when I had  just learned to send on the cootie several
years ago - the tenuous cootie key with stage fright.

Sometimes a cootie (also called a sideswiper) is confused with an
expert on the hand key.  Some hand key operators can achieve 30 wpm
which is also a fast cootie key speed.  Here is a recording of a fast
hand key:   http://mikea.ath.cx/www.n1ea.coastalradio.org.uk/fast_hand_key.mp3

When learning the cootie, I tried with the "fingers start first"
system recommended by some wire telegraphists and old timers and I
found it very smooth but I also found it very confusing as I wanted to
send with a bug and one key confused the other!

I soon modified this to use this method:

Start each letter with the same hand motion as a bug, then alternate
the closures from that point. Thus a morse character beginning with  a
dash would always start with the fingers; a character beinging with  a
dot, the thumb. This was my only modification of the LRLRLR type  (or
RLRLRLRL etc.) type of motion.

I can force myself to send "fingers grab first" but it seems on the
next letter, I'm leading as if I'm sending on a bug again. So I
didn't fight it, I went with the flow.

Unevenness - I have noticed that I occasionally get "confused" about
which side to send on - but since a cootie is bi-directional, I  have
learned not to worry about it, so any delay or break in the flow  is
minimized. Basically I adopt the "if it feels like it should go  this
way in motion, do it." approach.

Adjustment of sideswiper:  Most operators find that it is easier to
send clearly with different spacings on the left and right.  I give
myself a bit more spacing on the left hand side (which closes with the
push of my fingers).  I also add a bit more spring on that side with
the Vibroplex Sideswiper.  The keys settings should be adjusted for
CLARITY of sending.

The hand key recording mentioned above was from a 1910-era disk
recording. At the beginning I sent the same text as later sent by
hand key by keyboard. How fast is the fellow going? He is uneven, but
he sends between 23 and 25 wpm.

The prosignal which sounds like "III" is the international morse for
"period". The sound for the comma (now) used  to be the sound for the
exclamation point which now has no sound for it. There were other
differences in early 20th century Morse but I  forget what they were.
I think the last change was the dropping of  the separator signal
(used to separate fractions from whole numbers)  to the hyphen (which
is still currently used for this) around 1965.

73

David Ring, N1EA

-30-


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