Friday, Dec. 9, 2016 — Another kinda screwy propagation night on 80, but i managed to get checked-in before the band went too long. While I was goofing around in the shack before the net, I realized that the 1944 Vibroplex Lightning Bug I was using was giving me the occasionally poorly sent character. Now my fist is far from perfect, and the Lightning Bug was set with fairly close spacing, which required a pretty fast wrist to switch between dits and dahs without a partial “dit” sneaking in along the way.
But last night I realized the problem wasn’t my aging reactions alone; the key was shifting slightly side-to-side while I was using it. It isn’t an unusual problem; the rubber feet on a key that’s 70-plus years old harden, which means the feet slide rather than grip the surface. And while the feet weren’t rock hard, they lacked sufficient friction to prevent random slips side-to-side, which showed up most often after a couple of left-and-right character combinations.
I have a bunch of replacement feet I found for sale on eBay (rubber bumpers they call them). They’re a little taller than the original ones, but not objectionably so. During the net, I checked my 1937 Mac-Key (the red one) and realized it was sliding worse than the Lightning Bug. Once I cleared the traffic net I added new feet to that one as well.
NEW ACQUISITION ARRIVING NEXT WEEK. OK, as you all know, I’m a sucker for a bargain. And a 1977 Vibroplex Champion in excellent shape showed up on eBay a day or so back with an attractive Buy It Now. The key was built a couple of years prior to the company’s sale and move to Maine. It is also one of the final years of production of the Champion. I have an early Champion with the old box-type hinge (and black base), but other than that, the two other Champions I have are a little worse for wear. As Randy Cole, KN6W, notes on his site, the Champion was the “Chevrolet” of the Vibroplex line up. It was less expensive to manufacture because it did not use cast metal parts. Vibroplex owner Scott Robbins told me at Dayton a couple of years back he was still considering bringing back the Lightning Bug, which is essentially the same as a Champion with a “M” style damper. I would dare say the Champion/Lightning Bug models would be less expensive to build still today; my guess however is that the demand for bugs is not overwhelming, and building a less expensive key would simply mean fewer sales of the more expensive Original bug. I’m also guessing the margins on the Original are higher than they would be with a resurrected Champion model, and if it doesn’t make sense financially, there’s no reason to move forward with a key that’s going to require tooling up for a completely different set of parts that aren’t used on any other model.
The parts used in the Original model bug are also the basis for the DeLuxe and Presentation bugs, as well as: the standard and deluxe Iambic model; the Vibrocube; the Vibrokeyer; the ZN Ultimate; the Vibroplex straight key. Is it economically feasible to produce what amounts to one-off parts for a key that may or may not find demand, and which likely will simply reduce demand for your flagship bug? That’s the $64,000 question … and given the fact there’s been no resurrection of any discontinued Vibroplex bug model, I think the market forces aren’t to support the creation of a new model key design.
DIT-DAH-DIT-LIT? My wife received a lamp recently from her mother’s estate — a touch lamp. Until now, I have been successful in steering my wife away from these gawd-awful lamps, knowing the issues they have in regard to nearby RF fields. I was also unsuccessful in keeping her from using it, which of course, means I wind up using it every time I transmit. In fact, I used the lamp to wake her up last weekend — I went to the shack and sent a series of V’s, which turned the lamp on, through its three levels and then off before turning back on and running through the steps again. I’ve warned my wife that if I want to operate after she heads to bed, she’s going to have to either unplug the lamp or tolerate the light cycling on and off (I’m sure that’s going to happen, hi hi!).
I’m still waiting for an opportunity to put my 1935 “deep vee” Mac-Key on the air. I’ve been mostly admiring the key from its perch across the room. Truth is I’ve been rotating keys onto and off the operating desk, and I’m not inclined to put this one on a desk already crowded with keys. Our family Christmas party is Sunday, so I’m probably going to wait until next week to do much with the key. Wish me luck on that!
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