It's been about a week since my last entry, and I've not heard much more chatter from the Vibroplex purists about the new, cheaper looking ID plates the company is attaching to its keys. I find myself wondering if the buying public really cares what the ID plate looks like?
As key collector Tom French pointed out, for someone who wants a key with the classic style ID plate, there's never a shortage of Vibroplex keys for sale on eBay. It's really amazing to think that you can spend $40 or $50 for a key on eBay that is every bit as good as the $200-plus on offered brand new today. OR you can buy replacement parts that will restore that key to full function.
As far as CW keys go, I have only purchased one lately since I bought what I consider the centerpiece of my collection, my first year of production 1905 Vibroplex: I sniped a 1936B McElroy Mac Key Deluxe. The key was just about in right-out-of-the-box condition. It's the best one I've seen, and frankly, I was lucky to get it — the final bidder's top bid was less than $5 below my snipe bid. I knew it would go high, but also knew my limit. I can't help but think if I had bid a few seconds earlier the bidder against whom I won would have quickly rebid.
One of the techniques I've used on eBay when sniping is to have multiple browser windows open. One window watches the item; the other windows are used to setup multiple bids. For example, if a desirable key is listed and no one has really bid on it, its a safe bet everyone is waiting to bid on it. If the current bid is $51, you can prepare your sniped bids in the other browser windows or tabs: I generally will bid as high as I want to pay for an item anyway. But sometimes you want to be able to quickly rebid; if a desirable bug sells for $5 over my sniped bid, I would go another $10 to win it in most cases.
The problem with the multiple window/tab approach is time: I time my sniped bids for the last 2 or 3 seconds of an auction. There's not much time to rebid. But what you can do is have an alternate sniped bid ready in the event the bids go higher than the single sniped bid you have ready — higher than your bid, but still not beyond what you are comfortable paying. There's a real gray area in there between what “common sense” tells you and the “my-wife-will-kill-me-if-she-knows-I-paid-this-much” level.
I don't use multiple windows often, but I reconsider them when I lose an sniped bid by a few dollars. And sometimes I get lazy and cheap, and make my sniped bid lower than my top figure, thinking no one else is waiting to bid; its a sure way to be outbid and lose your snipe attempt.
FROM THE BARGAIN BIDDING DEPT. My latest acquisition (ham radio related) is an Alinco DJ-C7 handie talkie. It's the successor to the DJ-C5 “credit card” sized HT. I bought it for less than $40, which was a steal. The HT is the perfect size for shirt pockets, and as much scanner listening as I do, its super handy. I have regretted selling my DJ-C5, which was a popular HT for hang glider enthusiasts.
The HT arrived last week and was in good shape, but I found out why the guy sold it — it was deaf as a barn door! The local dispatch center is full scale on every radio I own — except the Alinco, where it was weak with lots of white noise. As my daughter would text, “WTF?”
I was thinking I bought a real lemon, but a little investigation found that not to be the case. I bought a great little HT with an antenna that is either shorted or open. Thankfully, the connector on the DJ-C7 isn't proprietary like the DJ-C5, it is a standard SMA connector. Replacing the factory duckie with the higher performance one off my VX-150 was like “Wow! That's a great receiver!”
Unfortunately, I didn't think about buying a new SMA antenna at the hamfest yesterday; I didn't discover the dead antenna until earlier today. Go figure. I'll pick up a couple on eBay, I guess. I have other VX-150s and the factory antennas are pretty bad on those too.
While at the hamfest, I didn't do any shopping to speak of; my son did — he's now in high school at deep into technology at the local tech school IT program. The teacher has been to the ARRL's Teacher Institute twice, and he's using the program developed by Mark Spencer to teach technology to the kids — robots, programmable controllers, etc. My son is lapping this up, too. The teacher has a full satellite station now at the school, and on Tuesday, five of them made FM voice contacts with the ISS — a moment I don't think my son will ever forget. He's energized about ham radio and electronics in a way I've never seen, and I couldn't be happier.
OTHER EBAY GOODIES. While on the topic of hamfests and eBay, I did bring home some goodies from the hamfest — my son made a shopping list of parts he wanted — a breadboard, LEDs, jumper wires, resistors, etc. — which surprised me that he is interested in electronics at that level.
On eBay, I picked up a very cheap, very early MFJ-941C antenna tuner. This is one of the ones that's tan with the slide-off woodgrain cover. Trust me, it was cheap, and I'm going to use with my shortwave receiver in the library. At one time I had a small MFJ tuner, but at some point that tuner disappeared when my wife and daughter had one of their great cleaning fests. I'm still missing a power supply and portable j-pole antenna, all of which disappeared into the bowels of … somewhere else. I'm confident that one of these days, while my wife is looking for a cake pan, she'll stumble across that stuff in a hat box in her closet, or under the Christmas decorations in the attic. That's the only way I'll ever see it again, and rather than start a fight by asking for the umpteenth time if she knows what they did with it, I'll just replace it.
The tuner looks fine inside, which is good news. I've never owned one of these old MFJs, and I was surprised that they put the antenna switch on the rear of the tuner. That keeps the leads shorter, but sure makes it inconvenient. I owned the later MFJ-941D, which wasn't a bad tuner. I have a MFJ-949 in my Field Day box, but its too tall to fit where I need it in the library.
Sometimes I think MFJ tuners get a bad rap because of the average intelligence — and lack of — in the ham operator population. Just tune across 75 meter phone and you'll hear what I mean. I don't know if this is the gradual effect of having so many hams as former 11-meter operators or not, but “back in the day” on CB, it seemed the thing to do to talk like you were country hick, complete with faux country ax-cent.
Maybe these guys with their country accents is real; that's fine if that's the case, and for their sake, I hope they don't feel obliged to play that up for their audience.
Back to MFJ tuners and ham intelligence. I dare say that a lot of tuner problems — and a lot of the bad mouthing of MFJ — goes back to improper use and expectations of the antenna tuner. Every tuner has a range it can cover, some is greater than others.
It's a little amusing too — longtime hams who use MFJ gear seldom seem to boast about it. It's more acceptable to refer to it as “might fine junk” and pile on with the rest of the crowd. Newer hams — who may not be aware of the time-honored tradition of badmouthing MFJ — will usually give you their honest appraisal — and warranted praise — of MFJ products they own. I think it safe to say there are a lot more satisified MFJ customers out there than not.
In addition to the tuner, I also recently sniped another bargain — a mint condition Shure 55S microphone with stand.
Yeah, like I need another mic, right?? This one is advertised as “not working,” however I'm not so sure it doesn't work. The stock mic element is inside. The elements rubber shock mountings are pretty much gone, so the element sorta rattles. The pop filter inside the Shure 55 case is missing too. But this is a very nice mic in mint physical condition; the 3-selection switch for impedence — low, medium and high — is there. I haven't hooked it up yet but I will. It might be worth refurbing and reselling as a PA mic.
My original intention was to buy it for my next Frankenmic project. The case is beautiful and mint — my idea was to simply remove the factory element, replace the pop filter screen and mount the Heil HC-5 element. Shure 55S mics in working condition are bringing decent money, it may be worthwhile to refurb it.
My standard HF mic for my Yaesu FT2000 is still my repop “Shure 55S”. It works very well, but it isn't the Shure 55S. Purists would note the faux mic right away, and I know it too. With that said, I'm also willing to invest in a few parts and refurb it for resale. Show me the money!
73 de KY4Z … dit dit