It only takes a little inspiration and a whole lot of junk to confuse the best of us. And
herein without saying much more, are a couple shots of the conception of a key, formatted
after a standard key, but made out of stuff from everywhere. The base is a piece of wood
flooring, pivot junction is cotterkey, square handle stock was the most expensive from a
hardware store at 3 bucks. Screws, nuts, bolts, and the two rear connector anchor joints
for the main key to transmitter wire, all inherited from the either. Took a good part of one
and a half days to build. The cats have brused ribs from getting in my way, the ducks lost
two pounds from me not feeding them, and my socks developed holes from standing so
long in one area. In all must have used five or six tools, sander, drill, hacksaw, file, moto-
tool, skill saw, and a sundry of others. There was good language and a few off color words
as trial and error, assembly and dissembly went round and round. Various extra holes
were mistakes, but my excuse, "those are just for air cooling when I get going fast on the
key," so lets leave it be at that, sounds better.
Bill, W7WEL, was the first contact late one evening on 160M's as we pruned the airwaves
with out ear splitting cw parting the clouds in all directions causing a wormhole to open up
between our houses at which time and distance knew no dimension. Thanks Bill. And onward
to the SKN night and future contacts on CW. I'd encourage anyone and everyone else to do
something similar, as Jeff KF7JGA, Bill and myself have done. It don't matter how nice it
looks, so long as its functional, and hey, "its yours, you built it" thats the great part of it all.
I wish success to all, and a very good Christmas and New Year Season. Talk to you
down the waves of either. --WB7NZI --
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