ROLL OPENING MONTAGE
CUE SPOOKY MUSIC
FADE TO WIDE SHOT OF LABORATORY
Seated among the wisps of lead-laden smoke, magnifiers dangle from his nose as he careful crafts “The Creature. ”
He is surrounded by a variety of tools, only a few of which can be recognized:
Scapel.
Scissors.
Pliers.
Knife.
Wrench.
Screwdriver.
The figure hunched over the operating table grunts what surely is some sort of primeval, prehistoric cry of satisfaction. The floor is scattered with assorted blobs of formerly molten metal, hacked off bolts, bits of wire, springs and assorted mishapen, unidentified hardware.
Wire and cables snake around the carcass before him, each fitted with instruments of unknown and likely sinister electrical purposes. His soiled outfit covered with bits of wire, scraps of plastic and shards of metal, he picks up an instrument of ancient design, and begins turning the four metal stakes that attach the covering.
Taking the cables, he sorts them carefully; with skill and dexterity, he attaches a cable with a bright red connector to a row of red and white connectors; this cable is inserted into an opening on one end of the now assembled project. Cables that snake into the darkness behind the mysterious electronic equipment are attached to the remaining two round metal protrusions labeled “key” and “rig.”
He straightens up and pauses to doublecheck each cable. With his hand holding a knob of what appears to be a telegraph key, he sends what is likely some unknown cipher. The box before him buzzes in unison with the movements of his hand, the meters on the electronic bohemoth before him dance up scale in rhythm to the buzzes ….”
SUCCESS!
FADE TO BLACK, CUE SPOOKY MUSIC, ROLL CREDITS
Pardon my attempts at creating a Frankenstein-like drama, but that's what tonight has been in the ham shack as I've worked to complete my sidetone interface for my Hallicrafters SR-150.
My fear that the piezo buzzer would be too loud was unfounded; its not exactly a pure 700 Hz sine wave, but its good enough to let me know when I have the key down, which is exactly what I needed.
It's a simple affair, built into a plastic project box that's just barely large enough for all the parts. I did not need a potentiometer in the circuit, so I removed that. The largest part — and most expensive — was the 12v relay. The relay is a plug-in type, but I didn't have room for the socket.
I have a 1/8 phone jack for the 12vdc, then two RCA jacks; one for the key, the other for connecting the keying line from the rig.
All my rigs I use on CW use Radio Shack cables, one end is fitted with a 1/4-inch mono plug, the other is an RCA connector. By using a standard cable on all my rigs, attaching a key is simply a matter of plugging the cable into the socket on the key. I've outfitted most of my most-commonly used keys, both bugs and straight keys, with RCA jacks. It sure has simplified switching from one rig to the other.
Now that I have my creation complete and its working properly, I'm probably going to modify it. After buying the parts I found a circuit for a sine wave sidetone that uses a 555 timer. It only requires a handful of discrete parts and a small speaker. The buzzer doesn't sound bad, but the purist in me would prefer to set the tone more closely to what I prefer to hear on receive.
—
I've been cleaning up a little around the shack, looking over gear I've not touched for months as possible eBay items to sell for my FT-2000 fund. I ran across a CW keyboard I bought years ago on eBay, an InfoTech CW keyboard. This thing is built like a tank, and it keys both solid state and grid block keying. Variable speed, and a large buffer, plus a large memory you can type into and then send once you have it completed. It's a buffer that you can hold indefinitely, but you can only send it once. There's a meter on the keyboard, which I initially thought was to show you the wpm. No, the meter is there to show you how full the buffer is. I've not counted how many charcters it will hold, but its sizeable.
I have a few other things I need to pull out of the attic and put on eBay. I have to fix my dipole tomorrow, so wish me luck.
That's about all from here, I can't actually use Ironsides on the air until I get the antenna fixed. Perhaps that's incentive enough to get the job done tomorrow.
73 es CUL .. de KY4Z … dit dit …