[Elecraft] Paddles in General

[Fred Jensen]

FWIW:  As a senior in HS in '56-'57, I got a job as a relief operator at 
a coastal marine station.  Everyone had their own bug with a wedge to 
connect it to the company-provided straight key, and all but mine were 
Vibroplex.  I had acquired a very proletarian looking black-based bug 
(J-36?) made by Lionel (of model train fame) at a WW2 surplus outlet, 
and used it until I built what I think was a predcessor of the TO-keyer. 
  The big difference between the Lionel and a Vibroplex was that you 
could slow the J-36 dot speed down very nicely, whereas the Vibroplex 
sent dots at about 45WPM with the two weights all the way out to the damper.

Not long ago, a friend and former radio operator in the USCG gave me his 
Vibroplex.  I fooled around with it some, including alligator clips on 
the end of the dot arm to get the dot speed down, but I guess I've been 
on keyers too long and made almost no progress.  I finally modified it 
to separate the dot and dash contacts and use it as the paddle for the 
keyer in my FT-847 on 2m.  The J36 (or whatever it was) was soooo much 
easier to use than the Vibroplex.

Incidentally, when I first took my homebrew keyer (9 or 10 dual triodes, 
and about 12 lbs) into work, the 16-yr old kid took a lot of verbal and 
some physical flak from the OT's.  Eventually, however, most of them 
asked to try it out ... and two of them commissioned a friend of mine to 
build one for each of them.  People do change!

I don't have any problems with the KXPD1, and it is cool to have a 
totally integrated rig like that.

YMMV

Fred K6DGW
Auburn CA CM98lw
K2/100 # 4398
KX1 # 897

Vic Rosenthal wrote:

> After a similar layoff, I re-learned the bug -- it took me two years and
> I *still* don't sound as good as I did in 1957.
>