Friday, June 7, 2013 — I was working on an NTS brochure for my section when I ran across a wonderful story of a ham who created a bug during World War II while in Italy, and continued to use his homebrew bug throughout the rest of his ham career.
Sam Rhea, W4OGP, lived in Shepherdsville, Ky. and was one of the state’s top traffic handlers going back to the late 1930s. His license expired in 2007, so I assume he is a Silent Key. He was born about 1915.
Sam was well known for his “famous bug,” and one of the net traffic managers wrote an article about Sam, and got a photo and description of his bug.
Quoting Sam:
“This is the bug i made from brass I picked up at an ammunition plant in Casserta, Italy.
The paddles are made from the canopy of a Focke Wolfe fighter plane that was shot down in our area. The binding posts are taken from an Italian field radio I picked up in North Africa. The springs and contacts are part of a 1st Armored Tank rig which was replaced with FM gear.
My original Vibroplex is in the background for slower speed work.”
What a great story about a homebrewed bug! What an honor it would be have this key in my collection! This is a good opportunity to remind others who buy a used key to write down any provenance that you know about the key. In preparing to photograph my key collection it hit me how much love and labor went into some of the homebrew keys I have in my collection. From time to time, a homebrew key may have a callsign on it. Some — sadly — have no identifying marks. Perhaps my adding them to my online photo collection will at least share them with others who have an interest in keys.
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