Friday, March 11, 2016 — This will be short and sweet, I have to get to bed. I was here in the shack thinking I could scare of a CW contact, or at least a QSO to listen to on 4o or 80, but its like they rolled up the bands for the night at the stroke of midnight. In fact, I had to spin the dial across 75 meters to find some profanity-laced QSOs to prove that my antenna was still up in the air. I had one of my Les Logan Speed-X 510s wired up and ready to go, 
but no such luck.
As you might guess from the photo with this entry, I bought an ARRL Centennial Iambic key this week. Scott at Vibroplex had it listed under used keys. I wanted to get one when they were first produced, but I let them all get away. This key was used at hamfests to show off the key, and has some random callsign on it. But its basically new, and the price was well under half-off the original price. Hey, who am I to pass up a deal?
I was Kentucky Section Manager during the ARRL’s Centennial, and I had planned to buy one of these keys, so I’m happy to be getting one. I don’t recall seeing one on eBay yet. Anyway, its one for the collection.
An ARRL key I probably won’t buy (but should) is the ARRL Begali iambic paddle. Its quite a looker, and I’m sure it operates nicely. The ARRL Centennial key is basically the Vibroplex iambic on a bug base with room for a large logo. I like the operation of the iambic, but for now I’m using bugs.
Gotta run … will ramble on more once the key arrives!
73 es CUL de KY4Z … SK …. dit dit