[Elecraft] High End Paddles

[Ron D'Eau Claire]

Quotes from the Bencher website at http://www.bencher.com/whichpaddle.html:

"Frankly, the BY series paddle, like a fine sports car or a surgical
scalpel, 
does not respond well to the heavy physical input such operators are 
comfortable with. But that is how old time CW operators, trained on the bugs

and single lever paddles, learned their craft. 
If you are one of these operators, for you Bencher offers the innovative new

Hex Paddle. This paddle too is fully iambic, and very nearly as responsive
as 
the BY series paddles, yet is also designed to stand up to the most physical

of operators, thanks to the floating instrument grade ball bearing races and

magnetic paddle return, not to mention the massive base."

"The BY series, thanks to its unique pivot-pin bearings, is simply the most 
responsive iambic paddle available today."

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Now that is funny! So an operator who is comfortable with a old bug that
uses simple pivot bearings is going to notice a "floating instrument grade
ball bearing races"?

I can understand how an operator who learned CW on a keyer may have
developed the delicate touch of a watchmaker and may notice the fine
differences in bearings and tensions, but I can't imagine a bug operator
noticing the difference between a properly-adjusted set of pivot bearings
and "instrument grade" bearings. A bug operator is someone who learned to
send on a key that requires him to launch a heavy pendulum hard enough to
beat out a nice string of dits and then stopping the dits at just the right
instant by slapping the swinging pendulum against a mechanical damper with a
"clank", and in between make dashes manually by mashing the lever against
the dash contacts at just the right time. 

There's a lot of "finesse" in using a bug, but not much in the way of a
"watchmakers" touch. Using a bug is a very a *physical* activity compared to
keyer paddles. 

Ron AC7AC