A friend of mine, John, WA1ABI, is a real fan of Straight Key Night (SKN). For the past couple of years, I’ve thought I should dig up my 40 year old Brown Brothers Key, a Christmas present from 1974, the last hand-key that I ever used to send CW. It took me several hours of tearing into boxes on New Year’s Day to find it, then make up a cable to hook it into my rig. But a few hours before SKN was over, I was ready to go on the air, and started to reflect back on my early days in the hobby.
My first key was something my Dad let me borrow when I first got on the air using my single tube 15 watt Ameco transmitter back in 1970. It was a British Military Number 2 Mark III key from WW2. I can only hope that I still have it in a box somewhere.
British Military Number 2 Mark III Key
Fortunately my hand-key torture was short-lived as my parents gave me a Heathkit HD-10 in June of 1971, similar to the one shown in the photo below. It ran off of 115 volts and used a wooden lever arm to cause “snap switches” to close as you manipulated the single-arm paddle. I don’t believe it had any form of dot/dash memory. But it served me well for several years. The hand key would still come out as the CW net control operator would declare, from time-to-time, that all power was lost for keyers and only hand-keys could be used (funny that power-loss idea didn’t extend to the radio gear itself , which was tube stuff — but there were few rigs capable of running off of emergency power at that time).
Heathkit HD-10 Keyer
My Christmas present for December of 1974 (not a surprise gift) was a Brown Brother’s Manufacturing Company CTL-A paddle/key combo. I had built a copy of the WB4VVF “Accu-Keyer” on perf-board to go along with it. The straight key was rarely used. I used the iambic Accu-Keyer until about 1983, when I replaced it with a Curtis K5 Lil’ Bugger Keyer, which is still working just fine 30+ years later, requiring a 9-volt battery replacement every decade or so.
Brown Brother’s Manufacturing Combo Key/Paddle with Curtis K5 Lil’ Bugger Keyer
John was nice enough to indulge me on New Year’s Day, and put up with about a half-hour of ham-fisted 14-15 WPM code. I believe this was my first hand key QSO in at least 40 years. I mentioned to John that I was frustrated sending so slow by hand, but that was the best I could do with my now shaky fingers. Anyway, it was a wonderful experience, it brought back many memories, and I’m grateful to John for the contact.
