I've been up late playing with my code keys this evening.
We had a ham radio club meeting tonight, which I had to lead in the absence of our president. We are having a special event station this weekend, so we have a lot of things to get done this week. Kinda like a mini Field Day.
I spent some time working on the Cedar Rapids Bug I got in Saturday's mail. It's in decent shape, but the contacts were horribly corroded. I've cleaned them up the best I could for now, though I'm nearly ready to dip the contacts in some Tarn-X. The bug functions pretty well, once I got the contacts to properly make and break.
I've read reviews by some guys of how terrible a bug it is, but the two I have really just aren't that bad. I'm not real crazy about the damper on this bug, but hey, the thing works, so what more could you ask for? At least it's metal on rubber, which is quieter than most bugs with metal-on-metal style dampers.
It's funny how so many bugs you see on eBay have the contact posts all askew. I mean they are turned hell west and crooked. How they heck did they wind up like that?? There's no way to operate them like that.
My theory is that the rubber washers used as insulators have some shrinkage to them over the years — just enough to make the dot and dash contact screws loose on most old Vibroplex bugs.
The sad truth is that most sellers on eBay don't know what the hell a semi-automatic bug is — and of course, I was in that group too until I bought my first one and fell in love!
One of my ham club buddies bought a homebrew iambic paddle at the hamfest, and it's a zinger — its from an early 1950s issue of QST, where you take two straight keys and turn them on the side and bolt them together with the bases facing one another. Using some hardware store right angle brackets, you fasten them to a base, replace the key knob with paddles, and viola! Instant iambic key!
Now as odd as this sounds, you can't believe this key until you see it — and try it. It's much, much better than you might believe. It has a very nice feel to it, and I didn't try to adjust it. I suspect I could be very happy with such a keyer.
The key was made from two J-37 keys, which aren't slouches when it comes to quality anyway. This homebrew key has some nice touches, and shows some real craftsmanship.
MISTAKEN IDENTITY. Last week I received another VIbroplex key in the mail — this one is a 1925 Original with the black japanned base. It's seen quite a hard life, too. It's missing two feet, one weight, and one of the terminal screws when it arrived at my home.
I didn't recall it missing a terminal nut, so I pulled the auction back up on my computer. There it was, two terminal screws, though the missing one looked larger in diameter than a “normal” terminal nut. I figured it wasn't an original one, but since I paid hard-earned bucks for the key, I wanted all the parts.
I e-mailed the seller, who replied later that day stating he indeed found the missing nut and would ship it to me ASAP.
It arrived today via Priority Mail (the guy spent $3.85 to ship a nut? Geez!), and I had a good laugh. It wasn't the mssing nut, it was the missing weight! For some odd reason, the seller had put the loose pendulum weight on the terminal screw! I guess he thought it was supposed to go there. Anyway, that explains why the nut looked so much larger than an original one — it wasn't a nut at all. So this hard working bug lost a nut but gained a missing weight.
MEETING FRUSTRATIONS. While I was away leading the club meeting, auctions for two beautiful Vibroplex Blue Racers were closing on eBay. One was a gray-based model from the 1950s, the other was a new blue-based one. The only model Vibroplex bug I want but don't have yet is the Blue Racer. Sigh…
I keep buying duplicate bugs .. I dunno why, but they look nice, I guess.
Tonight I won an auction for another Vibroplex WW2 Original Deluxe bug, with the tin ID plate and the unique “crystal gray” (otherwise called Battleship Gray) painted base.
Like the one I bought tonight, another WW2 Original Deluxe I was playing with tonight is mint. It came last week, and features an non-stock ivory thumb piece. The finger piece is gone, and looks like it wasn't designed to be used at all. The ivory has a very unique look to it. It's rather worn from the long years of use.
The tin plate on this particular bug is mint. Vibroplex ID plates were brass, except during World War II when they were made of tin and simply painted to resemble tin. On another WW2-era bug, the paint has flaked off parts of the ID tag, a very common occurence for the vibroplex keys of this vintage.
I probably should be shot for buying yet another WWII deluxe key, particularly when there are other keys I would like to buy instead.
One addition I did claim this last weekend was an EF Johnson 114-520 bug. This one is in mint condition, just like another EF Johnson bug I won of the same model. I'll have two of the same.
Another unusual key I won is a Poucel Electronics El-Key. It's single lever key, and should be fun to play with.
It's very late and I need to scoot. Good night for now!
73 …