Sunday, Sept. 6, 2020
I recently purchased an electronic keyer I’ve never seen before — a Transkey Senior single-paddle keyer by Global Import Co. It was listed as “not working / for parts” and the seller said the tone volume control was scratchy and the keyer wouldn’t make dahs. Obviously this seller wasn’t a ham, but I thought I would buy the keyer as a project.
The keyer arrived intact, and I realized its made by the same company that made the other Katsumi keys and keyers in Japan. There are some nice Katsumi keyers out there too; the one I own right now is the EK-108D.
The Transkey Senior (was there a Transkey Jr.?) operates off 120vac as well as 6vdc; the key is extremely well built; the key is basically a very simple single lever key. The keyer is noted as the “Senior” version, and includes adjustment knobs for sidetone volume and keyer speed. The key has two thumbwheels to adjust the length of the dashes and adjust the frequency of the sidetone.
The keyer also has two large toggle switches; the left one switches the key between automatic and semi-automatic mode; the right one is the power switch.
I plugged in the keyer, not sure what the hell to anticipate. The indicator light lit up as it should. The paddles weren’t on the key, so I tried the lever left and right … nothing. Wait … is the volume down? Yep. I turned the volume control and heard some scratchy tones trying to come thru. At this point, I took the cover off the key, broke out my contact cleaner, and cleaned the volume control as well as the contacts for the key.
Reasssembled, the key came on and made dits but only gave a dah as long as you held the lever to the right. Kind of like … semi-automatic mode, perhaps? I checked the toggle switch, and yeah, it was in semi-auto mode. Flipped back into auto mode, the key created the most perfect, beautiful CW you would hope to create with a single lever keyer.
Well, my project didn’t take long to repair! The only modification I might consider is to change the resistance on the speed pot to slow the low end a little more. Its about 15-17 wpm on the slowest setting, and when I’m checking in to a slow-speed net, I prefer to operate at a slower speed.
But otherwise, the keyer is just about perfect. Inside the case, its all original and unmolested. This key is heavy enough to sit on your desk and stay put.
Of course, as an early single-paddle keyer, the dahs aren’t self-completing, so if you’re used to using self-completing keyers (as most are today), you will likely truncate some “dahs” until you get the hang of using the key.
But its an attractive unit and has some nice features. It’s a keeper … at least for now.
I was going to hook the Transkey Senior to my Tempo 2020, but I lacked the proper cable to do so. The MFJ-422 keyer works well and is simple to operate. I’m not needing to use the Transkey, but want to just to have it on the air.
SPEAKING OF KEYS. I need to get a bug on the air and home my fist a little. You get lazy using these keyer do-dads … or at the very least, your bug fist gets rusty. I’m still loving using my Tempo 2020 in Studio C and checking into my CW net with it.
I recently added the matching Tempo 8020 VFO, and enjoy the heck out of the second VFO. I can leave the external VFO on my CW net frequency, and then tune around the bands.
I need to do the brakes on my son’s car tomorrow; once that’s complete I plan to do some cleaning up in the shack in preparation for my new gear. My new shelf units arrived today via FedEx; they’re still smaller than I wanted, but I’ll still put them to good use.
K4KZA SK. I’m sad to report that one of our longtime local amateurs, Larry Walker, K4KZA, became a Silent Key on Friday. Larry had been suffering from Parkinson’s disease for probably 10 years or more. Larry was one of the elders of ham radio in our community.
Larry was a patient my wife saw recently in our local hospital, and we called to check on him several days after he was discharged to make sure he was doing ok. I drove past his home a couple of different sunny days and saw him outside sitting on his car port.
73 es CUL … de KY4Z … SK SK …. (dit dit) …