Early Wednesday morning, July 29, 2020
I received a nice email note from a ham who lives in Arizona who recently dug up the E.F. Johnson Speed-X 114-310 oval CW key (with circuit closer) than he bought in 1965 after earning his Novice ticket.
Jean Lestrale, W2FGV, said the key cost $20 from Arrow Electronics in New Jersey. The key didn’t see much use, Jean said; he subsequently upgraded to General (in those days the Novice was only good for one year and was non-renewable). The key ended back in its original box — until recently. Jean says he dug it up, put it back on the original board he had it on 55 years ago, and is displaying it in his living room.
I own several of these oval Speed-X keys, but none in such pristine condition as W2FGV’s key. As you can imagine, the key looks like it was manufactured yesterday! Thanks to Jean for pics of this beautiful key!
MAC-KEY BOOGIE. It has been a considerable amount of time since I did much buying of CW keys on eBay, but I broke the dry spell about 10 days ago.
There were a couple of 1936A McElroy MAC KEYs listed with attractive Buy It Now prices, and before the night was up, I snagged them both. They keys aren’t perfect, but hell, when you think about the fact these keys are pushing 85 years old, I can’t complain. The fact they still exist is a testimonial to Ted McElroy’s design and to their popularity.
MAC KEY S/N: 5995. This Mac Key is a fairly early 1936A model with a brass nameplate rather than the later aluminum nameplate. The key is mostly original with the exception of the dot contact and non-original weights. The damper lacks the locking mechanism on this key. The screws holding the finger and thumb piece are replacements.
MAC KEY S/N: 6603. This later 1936A Mac Key has the aluminum nameplate. It looks like at least one weight is original. The dash keying lever appears to be a replacement fashioned out of brass; the slotted connection bar that serves to mount the dot an dash contacts appears to have been a more recent brass duplicate (nice job!). The original damper has the locking mechanism.
I’ve not had time to put either key on the air, but I’m looking forward to it soon.
73 es CUL … de KY4Z … SK SK ….. (dit dit)