Greetings to all my fellow Blurty ham operators.
You can tell the fall of the year is here … all you have to do is to listen to the 80 meter band after dark — wow, the absence of static crashes is sure sign that fall is here!
This past weekend, the 80 meter band was very active. I prowl the old Novice band mostly, and “the joint was hoppin' ” Saturday and Sunday night.
I just finished a contact a couple hours ago on 80 meters. A fellow in Brooklyn, Mich., was banging in at my QTH with a crushing signal — and he was using 100 watts to a dipole! He said I was pounding in at his place too — using my Heathkit HW-16 running about 40 watts max. It was a very good night. There were a couple other QSOs going while we were on, then a couple others fired up after we signed.
For the QSO I was running my latest addition to my bug collection, my Vibroplex Zephyr. It's working pretty good, but the guy I was in QSO with was running slower code than I was, and it was tripping me up trying to run slower than the bug was actually set to run. I did OK, but I had a couple of flubs late in the QSO, and I realized the cable from the bug was messing up the pendulum, giving me a screwy dit once in a while.
I've usually put my paddles or keyer in front of me, just left of the centerline of my desk. I've been putting my latest bug I've been using in the same spot, and as you can imagine, keepng a Bencher, a bug and another set of paddles on the desktop sure clutters things.
With the Zephyr's arrival, I realized I could move it to the right side of the desk (I have a corner desk). It's really comfortable to operate the key right there, too. More than I figured it would be. The problem I've had is the key giving double dits or extra half-dits. This is caused mostly by me getting lazy or slow on the key. You have to be quick when you switch from the dits to the dahs. If you hesitate a split-second, you wind up with a partial dit, making your code sound sloppy.
Our QSO lasted about 45 minutes. It was a great rag chew. I flubbed several characters, and figured I must be tired. By the time I signed, I realized the temporary jumper lead I'm using to hook up the bug was laying near the end of the pendulum, and the pendulum arm was hitting the wire every other dit or so.
I need to work on higher speed CW. I listened for a while this evening to some 20 wpm stuff, and copies portions — better than I figured, actually. I would love to run the bug without extra weights, that's my goal!
73,
de KY4Z SK ….. dit dit ….