Me and my Samson ETM-3C double paddle Morse key have been together rattling out messages in Morse code for over 40 years now. The key has never let me down and we have travelled the world together. I’m pleased to report that both me and the ETM-3C are still going strong with a whole lot more dots and dashes still in us providing our respective batteries don’t conk out. Come in Tokyo!!!
To generate dots and dashes, you have to ‘key’ the two paddles side to side. One paddle generates continuous dots, the other paddle generates continuous dashes and, if you squeeze both paddles together, then a stream of dots followed by dashes will be sent. The trick is to manipulate the paddles in order to build up the Morse code characters.
Great photo, Richard, and a nice station! I’ve always preferred VHF and UHF operations, there are plenty of linked repeaters around Las Vegas and people on simplex too. I have no interest in the digital stuff on these bands.
There’s not much VHF/UHF activity up here in the north of Scotland – and precious few radio amateur radio people. HF is where I started out when I first went to sea about 300 years ago and we only Morse code in those days. Some habits die hard! I tried to get on the air yesterday but the bands were completely blocked by people doing one of these competitions. The airwaves go crazy when there’s a contest on. I’m starting to hear people from the US coming in as we pull out of the pit of the 11 year sunspot cycle. Heard a couple of East Coast people yesterday. I need to think about putting a better aerial up. I’m taking my portable HF transceiver with me to Crete in a few weeks – listen out for SV9/G4LFE!