[Elecraft] OT - Vertical Bug

Tue Mar 15 19:11:52 EDT 2011

Hey, Tom lives!!  Haven't heard you on the air in a month of Sundays.

At the coastal marine station, most of the OT's had Vibroplexes of 
various flavors, all very shiny and in velvet-lined wood carrying cases. 
  They looked really cool to this 16 yr old.  They all were very fast 
and all my crew mates used more or less ugly weight schemes to slow them 
down to the Company speed limit of 18WPM when in paid traffic.  The 
extra weight gave them a really heavy feel and the more desirable 
rolling wrist motion ended up being more of a "slamming back and forth" 
motion.  They tended to clatter a lot, and since we wore the cans 
forward for ear protection [inferior AGC?], I could hear the op next to 
me sending away.

One guy, Walt, who beat up the 16-yr old less than the other guys, had 
something else ... McElroy?  I can't remember but it was very smooth and 
nearly silent.  He let me use it some and I really liked it.

My J-36 was built by Lionel [there were many manufacturers of the J-36, 
it was sort of a generic nomenclature for semi-automatic "speed key"], 
it looked like it went ashore at Iwo Jima with the Marines, it easily 
ran at 9-10 WPM, it was more or less silent, and it cost me $5 at 
Surplus Sam's in downtown Los Angeles.  While I did like "shiny," cheap 
also attracted me since all my earnings were going into my college account.

I think a lot of the problems we hear on the air with folks using bugs 
is contact maintenance.  In the video, he clearly had taken very good 
care of his keys and contact problems were not a problem.

Keying my K2 or K3 with my Lionel J-36 works just fine.  Given that all 
mechanical keys bounce, and I know I'm keying a CPU, they must have some 
good conditioning there.

73,

Fred K6DGW
- Northern California Contest Club
- CU in the 2011 Cal QSO Party 1-2 Oct 2011
- www.cqp.org
On 3/15/2011 2:22 PM, Tom Hammond wrote:

> I have an old bug used by a friend who was an HF op for the MO Hwy Patrol.
>
> His Vibroplex runs nicely from about 18 WPM on up... BUT he (or
> someone else) modified the leaf spring by thinning it (vertically) as
> shown below:
>
>        -----\___/-----
>
>        _____/---\_____
>
> This thinning reduced the 'springiness' to a level which allows for
> nice slow CW
> with the weights fully out, but nice response up to 40+ WPM with the
> weights fully in.
>
> 73,
>
> Tom   N0SS
>
>
> At 04:01 PM 3/15/2011, Ron D'Eau Claire wrote:
>> Thank you Stan. I've seen photographs of a vertical bug but I've never used
>> one.
>>
>> I also have a Vibroplex bug - a standard model that came to me in the 1990's
>> through an old friend's widow when he became a silent key. My regular bug is
>> an E.F. Johnson Speed-X. The Speed-X slows easily to 10 to 15 wpm using it's
>> nifty standard weight that has a finger grip clamp - just squeeze and slide,
>> let go and it's securely locked in its new position.
>>
>> I was surprised to find that the Vibroplex would not slow to less than about
>> 25 wpm, even with two weights. My friend had been a commercial CW op both at
>> sea and at KPH in California so I knew he had to slow it down to under 15
>> wpm to match the speed wanted by the other operator. Les accomplished that
>> with a common cable clamp secured to the pendulum. (See it at
>> http://www.radiomarine.org/gallery/show?keyword=kphhistory&panel=pab1_1#pab1
>> _1 Scroll down to Les Burger and click on the image to enlarge it). You can
>> see the threaded shafts of the cable clamp sticking up through the crossbar.
>> It works great, but it's a very heavy feel.
>>
>> Talking with a number of OT Vibroplex owners whose bugs slowed down in into
>> the 15 WPM easily without special weights and comparing keys closely, we
>> discovered that Vibroplex made two different leaf springs for their key
>> pendulums back in the 1960's. One was much thicker with a higher vibration
>> frequency than the other. I've never been able to find out why they did
>> that.
>>
>> The sound and feel of a nice bug is, for me, just as basic to Ham radio as
>> stringing up antennas and melting solder on a new project ;-)
>>
>> 73,
>>
>> Ron AC7AC
>>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>>
>> I just want to share a recent discovery with other Elecraft listers who
>> appreciate 'bug' keys.
>>
>> The following short video is a demo I made of my new vertical 'bug'
>> compared to the more traditional ones.  This vertical key is a fabulous
>> slow speed performer and doesn't need a pipe wrench hanging off the
>> forward end to slow down - it's naturally slower but dropping the weight
>> brings it up to 35 WPM.  Until recently I knew very little about
>> vertical keys and pretty much concluded that with so little marketing
>> going on, they must not be very good.
>>
>> GOSH,  WAS I WRONG !!
>>
>>
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5EU6wubkaE&feature=related
>>
>>
>> 73, Stan WB2LQF
>>
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