After all the fun I've had with my new 1939 McElroy Mac Key Deluxe, today I dug up my old 1936 Mac Key from the spot I'd stuck in in the cabinet. Its been tucked away for many months, mostly forgotten and certainly unappreciated.
After using my new Mac Key, I realized that my earlier one might be adjusted to operate just as nicely. The 1936 model was setup slightly different, but it was close enough.
My early model is missing the feet and the weights. I ordered some rubber feet for it and they arrived today and work great. I swapped the weight from my new key to the old Mac Key, and with a few minutes' time, I had it adjusted — and it was surprising to me how well it really worked!
I've ordered some round brass stock to fabricate a couple of weights, so I think I'm going to clean up the '36 model and put it on the air.
McElroy keys used double paddles from 1934 thru 1936 models; after that they used the traditional padde/round knob arrangement.
McElroy had no qualms with promoting his CW copying abilities on the code keys he manufactured. His Mac Key had this inscription shown here cast into the bottom of the cast iron key's base: “Semi-automatic Telegraph & Radio Code Transmitter. MAC KEY. Manufactured and Guaranteed by T. R. McElroy, World's Fastest Telegrapher, Boston, Mass.” The message is cut down to abbreviations, but its there nonetheless.
I checked into the KSN net tonight using the new Mac Key, and I'm still tickled with how well it works, even at slower speeds (20 wpm and below). Of course, I wind up sending characters at about 18 wpm and increasing the spacing between to approximate 5 wpm. The NCS is always very good about staying at 5 wpm regardless of how fast we send when checking in. 73 es CUL … de KY4Z …. SK …. dit dit ……….
