One of my favorites of Ed's homebrew keys. Look closely and you will see
that Ed still sneaked in his call sign on the keys placard.
This vertical
key was fabricate from parts from a polar relay
which were used in a lot of applications and were very popular in teletype
equipment. It traditionally has two field coils , with one of the coils
was excited by a voltage to provide a "mechanical bias" instead
of a spring.
Try to guess what the main structure of this key
is made from:
And folks to prove that Ed is frugal and can make a
key out of any thing . . . . .
Where did the parts for this key
come from"
My favorite display of the manufactured keys, the "military" key secton.
Look closely at this military key , you will find that the knob is metal!
An old time favorite the military J-36 made
by the Toy Train manufacturer LIONEL. After W.W.II this key was readily
available on the surplus market and launched many hams into high speed CW.
The key continued to be used by the military and in Vietnam by Special Forces
at base camps where they had to send routine hourly high speed CW reports.
This key has the plastic placard that is often missing from the keys at
hamfests.