I live out on a rural mail route, and I can tell when the substitute is running the route. The woman who is my regular carrier's sub never brings my eBay parcels up the hill to the house. I have a large mailbox, but she leaves me a note that the box is at the post office after 3 p.m.
I guess its not a big deal, but my regular carrier at least comes to my door to see if I'm home (if I have to sign for it), otherwise he'll just leave the boxes and mail at the front door. The porch is covered and well protected from the elements.
I finally got to the post office to get a package the sub didn't deliver on Monday, and it was worth the wait.
I picked up a well-packed 1943 Vibroplex Original Standard key in near mint condition. The key base is black wrinkle paint; the bright metal parts are in mint condition. The only thing the key is missing were weights.
The seller noted the contacts were dirty — boy was he right! They were very tarnished, and it took quite a bit of time with some Tarn-x to get the contacts clean.
The base of the key is really a bit unusual. The surface of the base has a series of divots that look like guides for holes for either the Vibroplex Lightning Bug or the Champion. I don't know for certain the holes line up perfectly, but it looks like the base was drilled with shallow holes prior to its painting. From what I can tell, the key came from the factory with the shallow holes in place.
After I cleaned the contacts I put a weight on the key from an older one, then clipped on my bug tamer. The key's action is really, really fast — even with my tamer the speed was over 20 wpm. I've not found many Vibroplex keys that have the same action from one to the other, and this one is one of the fastest Vibroplex keys in my collection.
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Parts Is Parts
I need to buy stop buying bugs and invest in some parts. I have a long want-list of parts, from finger pieces to weights — I have several keys that need weights and screws.
I have my eye on nabbing a McElroy Mac-Key. I've missed a couple of reasonably priced ones, and I think that once Christmas is over I'll pursue one in ernest.
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I checked in on the Kentucky Slow CW Net (KSN) tonight for the first time in several weeks. The NCS was very weak for most of the net, then his sigs built up and I decided on the LAST CALL to check in.
The KSN is moving to a new frequency, 3579 kHz, beginning next Sunday, Dec. 3rd. That might be interesting because suddenly all the activity on the 80 meter band is going to be compressed in 100 kHz. I think they're moving the net in order to stake a claim prior to the implementation of the “refarming” which takes effect Dec. 15th. We had a lot of static crashes tonight for some reason.
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I'm off for now … 73 es CUL …. de KY4Z …. sk …. dit dit …..