Friday, Dec. 27, 2013, 3 a.m. — I’ve been writing a blue streak of entries for my blog, prompted mostly by the arrival of Straight Key Night next week and my desire to have a few unique keys on the air.
I had a ham pose a question to me recently that puzzled me for a spell. I was asked “Should I use Upper Sideband or Lower Sideband to work CW?”
Now my immediate thought was “Doesn’t the rig have CW as a mode?”
This ham told me he recently had worked his first CW contact, which prompted my congratulations. But then I realized that based on his question, he wasn’t working CW by ear, he was using some sort of computer interface. In that instance, USB was the proper answer to his question, but he had me a mite bewildered for a bit while I wondered if he was working MCW on HF and not true CW mode.
I guess I’m an old-school purist … CW should be copied by ear, not computer (unless you are working some high speed moon bounce stuff perhaps). My friend with the interface will find lots of hams whose fists aren’t “interface friendly.” I suspect they’ll be like my Silent Key friend who told me once that the guys his interface couldn’t follow “need to work on improvin’ their CW sendin’!”, implying their fists were faulty because the computer couldn’t follow them! I tried to tell him that there wasn’t anything wrong with their fists; in fact, the sound of an operator’s true fist (i.e., not computer sent) was as individual as a fingerprint and a mark of pride among CW ops (well, it can be … I suspect my straight key fist will be uneven at best, and my bug fist will be infected with a dose of the “Lake Erie swing,” hi hi!
STRAIGHT KEY FOR SKN. What’s SKN without a Straight Key on the desk? Bugs are welcome to take part in SKN of course, and they have been the focus of my SKN preparations. Until last night I hadn’t really given much thought to which straight key or keys I might move to the operating desk.
This key is apparently a spark key manufactured by the J. H. Bunnell company. The key was missing its original spring, and it has (like several others) languished in my office awaiting attention.
Last night I disassembled the key and cleaned it. I pressed an old spring into service on the keying lever, then put it back together. The key has a black composite base, and the parts appear to be made of steel. There is no Bunnell name on the keying lever or other identifier, but there’s no mistaking the key to a Bunnell model offered for sale 1915-1926+.
I picked the key up on eBay as an afterthought … what attracted me to the key is that it is a spark key. It was pretty dirty and grimy, but it cleaned up well. The one photograph I failed to upload was a shot of the bottom of the composite base. There are no contact levers used on this key; bare, heavy copper wire is used, set into deep slots in the bottom of the composite base.
What other straight keys might I put to work on SKN? How about a Brown Brothers straight key? Or a dependable Speed-X straight key (oval base). I have a Bencher straight key or two as well, along with a plethora of various and sundry keys that aren’t worth much but are interesting to me just the same.
I’m falling asleep at my keyboard, I better post this and get to bed. G’night and 73.