Aahhhh yes. According to my stack of ragged CQ, QST and 73 magazines, the late 1970s was the era for the emergence of the CW keyboard.
I have a couple of examples of these CW marvels. The first one I acquired was an A-Tronix CW keyboard. It was a simple but effective keyboard that sent 5-65 wpm. It only had two controls, volume and speed. There was no weight adjustment, and to change the sidetone you had to go inside and adjust a pot. I think I gave $50 for the keyer at the Louisville Hamfest the first year the fest was at the Louisville Gardens. The keyboard worked fine, and still does. It's under my desk in the corner. The keyboard keys have an excellent feel, but the keyboard feels like its a jury-rigged affair. The keyboard itself feels like it's not well supported in the case. The only repairs I've done to the A-Tronix is to replace the 1/8-inch power jack on the back.
The second one I bought I can't recall the manufacturer, but this thing is built like a tank. It's as big as an Apple IIe, which is a sizable compuiter. The keyboard is solid and heavy, and has more features than the A-Tronix — adjustable weight, sidetone frequency, etc. It has a large meter that indicates how full the type-ahead buffer is. It's a great keyboard for teaching CW because it's got so many adjustments and a loud sidetone.
My newest CW keyboard is one I've wanted for a long time — an MFJ-496 Super CW Keyboard. The keyboard arrived this week and I finally got around to getting it online a couple of nights ago. It's got plenty of features and its built like a tank — but a more compact tank that my previous standalone keyboard.
The seller had it on eBay as one of those “untested, as-is” items, and I watched it but did not bid the first time it was listed. I finally asked the seller if he could check it for function. He relisted it and did check it and it worked fine, though the sidetone didn't seem to work. I was fine with that and after thinking it over briefly (and going down my eBay decision tree: “Do I really need it? Of course not!! Buy it anyway!!”), I bought the thing.
As I said, I've wanted one of these MFJ keyboards for most of the two decades I've been licensed. I've seen a few pass through eBay, but the high price they brought shooed me away. I've always told myself if I found one I would buy it, and did.
The seller, for whatever reason, didn't clean up the unit when he listed it. It had what looked like a decade of grunge on it, particularly from where your hands rest on the lower edge. I scrubbed it down with 409 and it looked like a different keyboard.
A previous owner had some sort of Rube Goldberg wiring harness hanging out of one of the unused ports on the back. I couldn't tell what the hell it was, so this morning I disassembled the keyboard (hoping I wouldn't permanently re-kit my new shack addition in the process) to see just what the hell was going on with the wiring and the built-in sidetone speaker.
The wiring turned out to be some conglomeration of cables related to the sidetone audio. I wonder if this guy had his keyer going through his SurroundSound system .. perhaps he didn't want to just work CW, but feel CW too.
I cut the extraneous wiring, reconnected the factory speaker, tested it all and was delighted to find it worked great. I reassembled it (only after a little Shack Floor snorkeling to retrieve the damn washers that fell off the four pots on the front of the unit) and its ready for my next QSO.
This quest for the MFJ Super Keyboard was launched some months ago when I kicked off a 10-meter CW net (prior to the FCC's move to eliminate CW testing). My plan was to use my MFJ-451 CW keyboard interface unit.
The MFJ-451 uses a standard computer keyboard, and its a really full-featured unit. It's got lots of memories, and all the functions you would want for contesting, ragchewing, etc.
The problem that I had — and many others have reported — is this units' sensitivity to stray RF. In my trials with the unit, it would intermittently begin spewing forth random characters in the middle of a QSO. Reducing the power helped, but on 10 meters, even QRP power levels seemed to be too much at times. It varied from time to time, too.
I found a deal for 100 RFI ferrites, and I applied them in bulk to every stinking lead on the unit, the power supply and the keyboard. Moving the setup was a hazard, if a cable fell off the desk it would El Kabong you in the knee with the full weight of dozens of ferrites. Despite the ferrite convention that met every week at my MFJ-451, I still couldn't run full power on 10 meters. All the grounding in the world didn't help its condition. I tired of playing CW roulette (“Will it work tonight, or will it spew forth gibberish?”), and pulled the plug — literally — on both the keyer and the net.
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Now how much use will my new MFJ Super CW Keyboard get? It's going to be my keyboard of choice from here on; the others will probably wind up on eBay. I haven't been much of a keyboard user, but I'm going to keep the MFJ handy for times when I don't feel like using a bug. I find that late at night when I'm tired I have more trouble sending passable CW. I would rather work CW than spend half my QSO sending strings of eight dits.
That's all for this installment. CUL … de KY4Z … dit dit …