Thursday, Dec. 10, 2015 — My wife is going to kill me.
It has been many months since I actually purchased an addition to my collection of code keys (aka “The Island of Misfit Morse”), but in a fit of Holiday madness I pulled the trigger this morning on a 1921 Vibroplex Original.
As you can see in the photo, its in fairly good original condition and complete, including wedge cord. Some of the carriage striping is missing due to wear on the sides, probably from the operator holding or moving the key, but not as worn as many I own.
Did I need another 1920s Vibroplex Original? Probably not. But this one had a fairly reasonable Buy It Now price and I needed what my wife calls “a little retail therapy.” When my wife does it, she brings home a $1000 mattress and box spring set; there are several keys on eBay in that price range that I would love to snag, but I would rather avoid sleeping in the barn over the winter months, December marks the entry of cold weather to the Ohio Valley, you know.
SCRATCHY DOTS. Last night I planned to check in on the state CW net again, and decided to move another key to the operating position — one of my McElroy P-500s. This 
one had a broken thumb piece, and while putzing around looking for a spare, I actually found the rest of the broken thumb piece (I’m awaiting krazy glue to repair it). I added a complete thumb piece to the key and wired it for my Yaesu FT-2000.
I don’t know why, but there’s something I’ve always liked at the P-500 key. OK, sure, it makes a great door stop due its weight. Mechanically (at least to me), it has essentially the same feel as the Hole-In-The-Wall bug.
With thumb piece installed, I had about 30 minutes to dial-in the bug, which would likely include cleaning the contacts. They cleaned up well, but in operation didn’t fare too well. The dot contact was fine, but the dash contact was scratchy as all get-out. I assumed the dash contact was dirty, so I cleaned it a couple more times, finally breaking out a dollar bill and using it to polish the contacts under pressure with the lever pushed tight against the dash contact post.
While cleaning the contacts with the dollar bill, I noticed some extra vertical play in the dash lever’s movement. With the dash contact closed, any vertical movement of the dash lever resulted in dashus interruptus — scratchy dots.
Without taking the lever out and trying to “tighten” the bent lugs that attach the dash lever to the keying lever, the next simplest solution is to electrically connect the dash lever to the pivot frame or other common point. This would allow solid contact regardless of the vertical slop in the dash lever. After searching around for some materials, I decided to put it off to another day and get another key ready to go for the CW net.
My back-up was one of my Les Logan Speed-X 501 bugs, and I had it read to run in short order. The only problem was the clock on the wall showed 9 minutes after the hour — the net had already come and gone by the time I was on frequency. Sigh.
So I spent a while tuning the band, looking for some interesting CW signals … I almost always stop when I hear a note that has “interesting” qualities (i.e., chirp, hum, or other “problem,” as this usually means the operator is running classic or homebrew ham gear).
SKN 2015. I am making mental plans for Straight Key Night 2015, though I have to tell you that SKN’s popularity has apparently increased over the past 10 or 15 years, and the 
CW subbands are damn near bedlam during the first hours of SKN.
I’m probably going to keep it simple and operate just a couple of different keys — my 100th Anniversary Vibroplex Original; my Speed-X 501; and maybe my 1938B McElroy Mac Key. My McElroy S-600 Superstream key is also nearby should I have a hankering to put it on the air. As far as actual straight keys, I have the Chinese K-1 that I recently uncovered, and a very nice Bencher RJ-1. The Bencher straight keys are some of the most unconventional keys, I have always wondered how many they sold over the years.
100TH ANNIVERSARY VIBROPLEX AWOL? I keep checking the Vibroplex website to see if the 100th Anniversary Vibroplex Originals are available again. The site notes that 
the keys were sold out and would return to production “later in 2015.” Well, it doesn’t get much later in 2015 than mid-December, and no word yet of their availability.
Of course, Vibroplex has been busy acquiring other amateur-related equipment lines, including Bencher. While I’m sure there are more important irons in the fire to tend to, my hope is that the 100th Anniversary Original will return in the near future … or perhaps there’s a cottage industry out there for someone to re-create the bases. I began my working career in auto body work and painting … hmmm …
SPEAKING OF KEYS …. I have not forgotten my J-37 iambic/straight key project. With my wife’s hand surgery recently (both hands) and the cooler weather, I just haven’t taken time to get the correct chuck key for my drill press. That’s really the next step — drilling the holes. I have the rest of the hardware ready to go once that’s done. Of course, the carriage striping will need to be done between the drilling step and installing the hardware.
My wife is off work for several weeks, so its going to be up to me to figure out how to either explain my latest key purchase, or intercept it and hide it from my wife. Honesty really is the best policy, and at least explaining it gives me an option to tell a version of the truth, hi hi.
Wish me luck … in the meantime 73 es CUL … de KY4Z SK … dit dit …