Errr

Again a lack of updates, been busy working etc, and I never really had much to blog about on the ham front.

I recently obtained a 1919/20 Blue Racer unusually this key has a T bar damper and not the normal U damper found on most Blue Racers of this era, Its got a lovely feel to it also.

Whatelse ham radio wise? well a couple more bugs have been obtained, also ordered a new band module for my Elecraft K1 it currently has 40 and 30 meters, I've ordered 17 and 15 meters, but I may convert the 15 meter band to 12 meters during build (unsure) Also ordered up the internal battery kit for the K1

Plans are inhand to put up a website with my key collection at some stage soon.

Bug *ered

Just going through some photos of bugs I own, and I came across this sorry state, I got it on ebay a few months back for peanuts, but its in pretty bad shape, and hardly worth the effort to restore it, none the less I will, but not to original spec. I intend to paint it British Racing Green, and lacquer the heck out of it, yes the main spring is bust, but it can be replaced.
Something for the winter.

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1920 Vibroplex with T style damper

Recently won this bug on Ebay, one of my few rare wins of recent, the main spring in this bug has been messed up also and repaired badly, intention is to replace the main spring the paint work won't be touched!

First post

Okay well blogs seem to be the way to go at the moment, at least for getting stuff online with minimum effort.
I'm not expecting to be updating this daily or weekly even, but I will try to avoid it becoming another abandoned blog. [you know the sort 3 weeks of the owner posting about what he had for breakfast, then nothing :-) ]

I recently added two more morse keys to my small collection, both are in need of restoration and one is quite scarce and might be of interest to others so I figured I could document its restoration.

The keys are a "Standard Radio" dated from about 1943 and manufactured for the "US Army Air Corps" bug in fair to poor condition, its main spring is bust and its sporting unoriginal paint, however it appears to all be there and should be restorable to a fine example.

Less than 40 of these keys exist, and Fred KT5X has done some wonderful work researching and documenting this bug, I'd like to thank him for his work on this!
Freds page on the Standard Radio bug




The other Key I've obtained is a Vibroplex Zephyr, I've always liked the narrower base Vibroplex keys and I already have a nice 67 Blue Racer deluxe, the Zephyr is a bit rarer but not uncommon.
Again this key needs work, the spring has been butchered in this key also, I'm guessing to slow it down? I'll inspect this and decide what to do, most likely I'll put in a new main spring etc, and tidy it up cosmetically.


The finger pieces will be put back to orignal spec. and the base, I'll attempt to restore keeping as much of original crinkle finish paint as I can.