Monday, Nov. 9, 2020
The 12BY7 I ordered for the Kenwood TS-520SE arrived today, though I’m probably not going to install it yet. I also ordered a new pair of matched 6146W finals, but unbeknownst to me, those are being shipped here from Australia, so it’ll be a couple more weeks before they arrive.
The 12BY7 is the driver tube, and its the one most likely to be soft, me thinks. Both finals tested good on both of my tube checkers. But my left knee isn’t cooperating with me climbing stairs to go up to Studio C.
On Friday I banged my left knee into the corner of the bathroom door — hard. And its hurt like holy hell all weekend. Today is better, at least I can get up and walk and tolerate the pain. Anyway, the last couple of nights I checked into my CW traffic net from the main shack — and its a good thing I did.
I didn’t check the contest calendar, but there was a huge CW contest underway Saturday and Sunday nights on 80 CW, and it took all of the filtering and DSP doo-dads I could conjure up to help me isolate the NCS’s signal.
EBAY ACTION. I know I don’t need to buy any more CW keys, that much is a given. But sometimes I can’t help myself.
Last week I took delivery on the Lafayette branded Hi-Mount BK-100 “Coffin Bug”. The seller hadn’t packed it so well, but it was in the original box, and thankfully, it didn’t get damaged in transit. The paddle on those keys is so damn fragile, they shatter if banged too hard. This key is in perfect condition, top to bottom. It is only missing the original instruction sheet to be a very mint example of the BK-100.
My penchant for homebrew bugs got the best of me last night; I big on something I’ve never seen before — a homebrew double lever bug, a do-it-yourself version of the Vibroplex double lever key, with a separate lever for automatic dits and manual dahs.
I have a couple of Vibroplex double lever keys, and the problem with using them is that if your timing is a little off, your dahs can cut off a dit. The single lever key is ultimately easier to use; I’m not sure what drove Horace Martion to develop the twin lever key, as I don’t personally think it was an improvement. Maybe it had a purpose in landline telegraphy, I don’t know. But at any rate, this neat looking homebrew key will join my collection. It looks to be well built. More to come after it arrives.
73 es CUL … de KY4Z … SK … SK … (dit dit) …