Thursday, Oct. 18, 2018 — While cleaning out my daily driver, I brought in a couple of USPS boxes that I’ve been carrying around in the back for several months.
BOX No. 1: This box contained one of the keys I acquired from the Tom French collection — a 1938B left-handed Mac-Key Deluxe SN 3431. As Tom described in his book on Ted McElroy and Mac-Keys, the left-handed keys were simply modified right hand bases. On this one, you can see where the mounting bosses for the bar that held the dot and dash contacts were simply ground off — apparently done so after the DeLuxe finish had been applied. And because there’s no bosses to mount the contacts, they added vertical posts that resemble those found on the McElroy S-600 or other similar keys my McElroy.
The circuit closer strip was a right-hand one that had been cut off (apparently because it no longer needed to connect across the base of the key since the terminals were moved to the left side of the key). The strip connected to the “hot” terminal, and it provided the proper circuit closer function as it should.
The damper was also moved from the right to the left, though the original mounting boss is still intact. The damper is mounted with two screws drilled and tapped into the base to the left of the original mounting boss.
The large McElroy Deluxe nameplate is shifted to the right to make room for the terminals. The original mounting holes remain in the base. The keying lever is the usual one but turned upside down for lefthand use. The key is missing the finger knob.
All in all, the key is really nice, and actually is my first leftie of any type in my collection.
BOX No. 2: The second box contained another Mac Key — a 1936A Mac Key. The key hasn’t been cleaned, but could use it. The damper has been modified and now has a rubber bumper; as you might expect, the bumper makes the damper quieter than the original design.
Other than the damper, the key is in excellent shape. The terminals are in the original location (damper and the right side of the dash contact). The key has the one piece “U” connector and only one original weight.
BAND IMPROVING. Finally, with the arrival of fall weather to the Ohio Valley comes improved nighttime propagation on 80 meters. Each night, the NCS of the Georgia CW net is booming in, making it a pleasure to check-in.
Not sure I mentioned it, but I successfully rehung my 80 Meter inverted vee hear on the south side of our house with the help of my son a week or so ago. I have been checking into the Georgia net regularly from my library shack, but not the Interstate Sideband Net, which is on phone. I have yet to make a phone contact from the library shack,, but I need to try out my microphone, which is a Heil Classic mic I picked up on eBay sometime last year. I’ve used the monitor to check how it sounds, but have yet to make a contact. I hate to try it out on the ISSB net, but I might. The wife usually has the TV blaring, so making a phone contact in the library while my wife is enjoying TV might be problematic.
Even though the MFJ 969 tuner doesn’t read forward power on its meter, I find that I can adjust the tuner by checking the SWR meter on the rig. I bought an external SWR bridge, but haven’t found it necessary to use it yet.