Sunday morning March 20, 2016, 1:35 a.m. — Its been an interesting weekend here in the shack. Friday night I did make the Georgia CW net, but instead of my usual 100th Anniversary key, I used one of my Les Logan Speed-X 501 bugs. The one I put to use I had cleaned up …. I dunno, a year or more ago? It took a little adjusting but nothing extensive in order to have it sending good Morse at the speed I like.
I’m always impressed by the Speed-X t-bar bugs, and how well they work. They are a very stylish take on the traditional bug (traditional meaning “Vibroplex” since they dominated the commercial market). The ones I’ve used tend to be more user-friendly at slower speeds, but can still run along easily at 25 wpm and up.
My only complaint is that they used some inexpensive pot metal kind of material for the castings — the T-bar on the Model 501 and 500, and then also the pivot frame on the Model 510, 515 and 520 keys and their variants — were some sort of very fragile cast metal. I call it pot metal because it reminds me of the pot metal used in automotive trim in the 50s (like on my 55 Chevy).
Fragile? Absolutely. For proof, just watch eBay, and you will periodically see a Model 501 with one or more of the “ears” of the “T” broken off. And I’ve seen a couple 501 where the owner sawed the other ear off to match. There’s one on eBay that was given quite a makeover after its visit with the hacksaw.
I own more than one 501 that has the chrome plating trying to pit and flake away. Chrome on pot metal isn’t always a good fit (especially after 75 years, hi!), and I have had two pivot frames arrive broken into multiple pieces from being banged around during transit. I’ve had surprisingly good luck using super glue to put the pieces back together, and they play just fine. Just do NOT drop one, that’s all I ask.
BARTG RTTY CONTEST. Friday night I heard a bunch of RTTY signals on 40 and 80, and it was the BARTG HF RTTY contest. I didn’t turn into Mr. Contester, but I did take the opportunity to fire up FLDIGI and set the Macros for contest use, which admittedly took some doing given the fact I was using some features I had never used before (like the contest QSO counter, and how to make it increase by one with every successful Q).
I had a good time making contacts and tinkering with FLDIGI. IT was time well spent, as I got the software and my rig talking to one another. I worked my contest contacts using the built-in logging software, and i worked well (though it did not check for dupes).
I worked a couple of non-contest CW contect,s which was boht fun andnerve-wracking.
Well, I’m falling asleep, ime to hit the rack. … more ot come!
73 es CUL … dit KY4Z SK CL … dit … dit …