Christmas duties have kept me out of the shack most of the day today, but after everyone hit the rack I did get back to work on my early Speed-X bug.
Earlier today I went to the hardware store and restocked on 6-32 and 8-32 machine screws, nuts and knurled nuts. The Speed-X — thanks to the guy who modified it — need new screw for all of the “hot” posts. Whoever modified the key attached the wires to the screws on the underneath side by laying the wires in the screw slots and soldering them in place. That worked fine until you wanted to unscrew the screws — which I did.
I replaced all the screws and rewired the key with new wiring on its underside. I broke out the Tarn-X and cleaned the key contacts. This key spent a lot of time on the air, all the contacts are very, very worn.
The key also had some sort of phenolic block backing the dot contact on the keying lever. I thought perhaps this was some sort of McElroy-inspired dot-bounce damper, but it had no “give” to it. I removed it and the key's dots improved 200 percent.
The key, with two standard size weights, operates nicely at about 18 wpm at the slow end. The only problem I found during testing is the dash lever is intermittent every once in a while. I've had this before on old keys that are dirty — the bent lungs that serve as the hinge for the dash lever get caked with dust and dirt over time and the dash lever loses continuity just enough to make the dash scratchy or a half-dash.
You can hold the dash lever to the right and move it up and down slightly and hear it break contact. I removed the lever, and perhaps tomorrow night I'll disassemble it and clean it up.
The key has a surprisingly easy action, requiring only a light touch. That's probably because the springs are old and weak. I'll try it as is for now.
73 de KY4Z …