Hi Blurty fans,
It's been a few days since I entered anything here so I better update things while I'm here.
My radio club had a successful — and enjoyable — Special Event station operation at The Kentucky Bourbon Festival the weekend of Sept. 17-18th. There's absolutely NO greater rush than being at the center of a pile-up, and boy howdy, did we have pile-ups on the first day of the operation!
We had been very concerned about band conditions — the HF bands had been very dead the previous week due to the solar flares that had been hitting the earth. Well, Saturday of the special event, 40 meters could not have been hotter!
We were running a very simple setup — an Icom IC-746 with an MFJ-941D antenna tuner and a 40-meter dipole fed with 300-ohm TV twinlead (this was one of our Field Day antennas). We didn't have the antenna WAY up in the trees, but it was about your average 35-feet that most guys use. We had consistent 5-9 reports or better all day. Of course, most of the stations we worked were also heard that well too. The band was hot, what can I add??
I probably hogged the operating position on the first day, but I operated only a little the second day, chosing instead to support the effort in other ways at the booth.
All in all, it was a very successful operation.
I just moved from my operating position to my computer desk after finishing a CW QSO with Ron, K0RDW, in St. Paul, Minn. Ron was calling CQ at about 10 wpm, but apparently he figured my Extra Class call meant I could copy CW at a much faster rate!
He came back to me at about 17 wpm! He was sending very good CW, so I was hanging on by my fingernails as he was sending his info. I missed his rig model and some about the weather, but not bad considering I was very rusty.
I threw caution to the wind tonight and put one of the FOUR semi-automatic keys (aka “bugs”) I recieved in the mail today. I received quite a bundle of packages in the mail today — I got two E.F. Johnson Speed-X 520 bugs, both in nearly mint condition; one older Les Logan T-bar key without a label (I bought this one from famed key collector and author Tom French); and lastly, I received a homemade bug built many years ago by W1FPG, Charles Rodeck of Pawtucket, RI. This bug is an excellent copy of an early Vibroplex bug, and built by someone who knew what they were doing in a machine shop. The craftsmanship on this bug is impressive — even after 75 years.
The base of the bug is solid brass, and very, very heavy. The seller wisely removed the finger pieces for shipping. It arrived in beautiful shape. The nickel plating is worn off in many areas, but it gives the key a very nice antiqued patina. The builder stamped his callsign in the base on the bottom and also on the base top right under the finger pieces. That is mostly worn away now.
One of the big joys I get is from getting these bugs I buy “ready” to go on the air. This involves adjusting, cleaning, etc. This key really didn't need much adjusting out of the box. Some of the adjustments were lose from vibration during shipping, but nothing major. It was a real thrill to hook it up to my practice oscillator and see how she felt.
This key has a very fast action. The damper is adjustable on this key, using a style the mimics the old post damper found on early Vibroplex Model X's. The builder (or someone later) put a rubber gromment on the end of the post to cushion the damper, and this arrangement works well, even though it does have a noticeable “thunk” every time the pendulum returns to neutral position.
This key had only one Vibroplex-sized weight on it, so I borrowed one from a Vibroplex. This key has some nice touches — for example, the builder made the pendulum longer than the length of the bug — enough so you can move the weight beyond the damper, which slows it down for someone who can't send well at 25 wpm.
The key is very Vibroplex in its construction; the dash lever is hinged in the old “pinned” style of the pre-1920-ish Vibroplexes. The other unusual thing is the main spring — it is very long, longer than the main spring normally found on bugs. I'm sure this was intentional, but I'm not sure if it was to slow down the bug or just to improve its operation at a variety of speeds.
Anyway, these four bugs showed up today, and I decided to put one of them on the air — if I heard activity on 80 meter CW. I spent some time getting used to the homebrew bug. I just like the feel of it, very, very solid — compared particularly to the lighter weight of the EF Johnson Speed-X bugs!
I added one of my clip-on lead weight “bug tamers” and tuned across the Novice portion of 80 CW. There were several signals, so I fired up my Heathkit HW-16 — my main CW rig — and tuned up. I got a 599 report from Ron, K0RDW, not a bad report this time of year.
After he speeded up on me, I speeded up to nearly match his speed, or at least the best I could on the new bug. I flubbed a couple of characters, but all in all, it was a nice contact — short and sweet, which was nice since I was gettng used to the new key. The key worked very well at higher speed, and that's WITH my extra weight to slow it down. Someone good with a bug could have flown with it.
I need to adjust the damper a bit, there's some dit-bounce to it, the pendulum doesn't snap back as fast as it should. I didn't oil the pivots, and thats' probably something that needs to be done to improve performance.
I've got the other bugs to get on the air, but not tonight. That's all the radioactivity from my shack for the evening. 73 to all and GN.