Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2016, 10:40 p.m. — As sometimes happens on eBay, I wound up winning an auction for a key I really hadn’t intended to buy — a Brown Brothers UTL-A. The auction depicted the key mounted on a piece of metal that was mounted to a larger base of plexiglas. The key looked pretty grubby in the pictures, but the photos made it look worse than it was.
My interest in the key was the fact it was a UTL-A key with the leaf spring mechanism — which is a Brown Bros key style I don’t own.
For those who aren’t familiar with Brown Brothers keys, the UTL designation stands for “Unbased Twin Lever” — meaning the key mechanism was sold without the typical base found on other Brown Brothers keys. The UTL base-less key was sold to hams and to other companies for use in their keyers. The article I read in the Vail Correspondent states that Palomar Engineers used the UTL on their “IC Keyer” that was introduced in about 1969. Photos of the keyer I’ve been able to find so far only show the HAM-KEY HK-1 key on the IC Keyer, though I do know for a fact other manufacturers used the UTL for the iambic key in their combo keying devices.
BROWN BROTHERS MODEL DESIGNATIONS. Brown used a series of letter designations to differentiate between the keys the company sold. In addition to the UTL, Brown also had:
BTL – Based Twin Lever paddle with the crackle-finish base.
ST – Straight Key.
CTL – Combination key, straight key and twin lever paddle.
CSA – Combination key, straight key and bug (this is one of the rarest Brown Brothers keys).
These Brown keys had traditional pivots for the keying levers and the straight key trunnion. Brown began manufacturing keys in about 1964 through 1979. In around 1974, Brown changed from traditional pivots to a leaf-spring system, which resulted in new model designations that simply added an “A” — with the exception of the CTL model, which also had a “B” variant. The CTL-A key was a straight key/twin lever paddle combination with one of the keys having the leaf spring mechanism. The “B” model featured leaf spring variations of both keys.
The key arrived in today’s mail, and when I unboxed it I found it was a pretty nice key after all once you get past the dirt. I have yet to clean it, but I will. The paint on the actual key is in good shape, just dirty. I decided to put the key on the air for the CW net I checked in to at 0100Z. The key worked fine; my iambic fist was the toughest part of the whole operation, and even that wasn’t so bad. I kept the speed at 13 wpm, and practiced a bit ahead of the net. But overall, the key operated just as smoothly as the BTL and CTL keys I own.
I’m not sure what I’ll do with the existing base; if I could find a Brown Brothers BTL-A base, I would probably mount the key to that base. For now it will stay as it is.
HAM-KEY. The HAM-KEY company of St. Louis (same hometown as Brown Brothers) manufactured a series of keys that are sometimes confused with Brown Brothers keys. HAM-KEY keys used injection molded plastic as the main base for the lever pivots; the red “base” was then mounted on a metal base with feet. All HAM-KEY models used red plastic finger pieces, so the similarity was probably intentional. HAM-KEY keys were less expensive than Brown Brothers keys.
The HK-1 was their twin-lever iambic paddle. I have one of these, and it works OK. Its not my favorite, and I have never had it in service very long. Not that I don’t think it is very functional, but probably because when I got into the ham radio game the HAM-KEY models were seen as the Chevrolet version of the Cadillac Brown Bros key.
My second straight key was the HAM-KEY HK-3 (my first was the ubiquitous “practice key” that came with my Heathkit code oscillator kit). Mine was the early version without the accessory tray that prevented the key base from tipping while pounding brass. Due to problems with the key’s stability issue, HAM-KEY updated the key with the HK-3M that included the aforementioned tray and removed the terminals on the base and replaced them with an RCA jack.
My HK-3 was mostly an exercise in CW futility; at the time I had a pretty heavy fist, and on some “dahs” the key base would jump (the rear of it would raise up momentarily, which is all that was needed to screw up your sending). Like most other HK-3 users, I learned to hold the base steady while sending. I can’t quantify it, but I never liked the feel of the HK-3. I always thought it had something to do with the keying lever’s pivot point being at the far end of the lever, rather than closer to the middle. My HK-3 ended up in a box in my garage, and the box was on the floor when the garage flooded. It was two or three years before I dug the key out of the flood debris, and it was worse for wear. By that time I had picked up an HK-3M and I stripped the good parts from the old key and replaced worn components on the HK-3M. All that was left was the keying lever and the red base with no other hardware. I eventually threw it away.
The HK-1 reviews on eHam are pretty positive; it is a low-buck key that’s still available at hamfest flea markets and eBay. It isn’t my first choice in iambic keys, but it remains a quite usable and inexpensive option for someone seeking a durable iambic key.
Note: Information for the post is courtesy of an article by Jim Zimmerman, KG6VI, that appeared in the Jan. 1993 issue of the Vail Correspondent.
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