Saturday 27 March 2010

Code Keys

I am still practising my CW, trying to bring my speed up using a combination of PC based training and on air listening. In the meantime I have been considering getting a "paddle" Key. In the past when I first used CW on the air I just used a straight key, the one in fact that is pictured above. I tried a paddle belonging to another amateur, but at the time it seemed to me that it would take some time to get used to using such a device. So I am monitoring a few suitable keys on Ebay and hopefully I will get a suitable one.
If you look at the key in the picture you will notice that:

1) It is dusty- maybe I should have dusted it BEFORE I took the picture!

2) It has a large wooden knob which makes the key much easier to use.- this type of key normally came with a flat, round knob about the size of a ten pence piece. The wooden one in the picture was handmade for me by a kind local amateur (now sadly silent key) who was a member of the Port Talbot Radio club- the first radio club I joined as a youngster some 25 years ago or so. In those days the older radio amateurs very much encouraged and helped the new younger ones. I hope that this still goes on today, although of course its also important that they new amateurs want to learn! That is not always the case.

3 comments:

  1. Great (Hi-Mound?) key. That native flat knob is designed for American style sending, your one is for more common here European style. As I saw in the net, there is original Hi-Mound Navy knob kit with black Euro-knob. Not quite sure.

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  3. Hi Kevin, that looks like a solid straight key. OT: I lost you from my blogroll. But I finally found you and put you back again on my blogroll. 73 Paul

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