Hi all!
The recent thread about Mercury paddles reminds me of N2DAN. "Dan" was a
neighbor of mine for quite a few years when I had a QTH in Freeport, Long
Island. He only worked CW and we used to have some great QSOs cross-town
occasionally.I'll always remember him because he used to compliment me on my
bug fist, saying he would never make me a Mercury paddle because I was
preserving the art of correctly using a bug!
In any case, after he showed me his Old World machine shop at his house, I
asked him why he didn't farm out some of the work so that he would be able
to make more Mercury paddles available to the fraternity. He told me he did
just that---and was dismally disappointed. He said the workmanship and
quality assurance on certain parts he contracted for was abysmal. For that
reason, he elected to hand craft all Mercury paddles--for ever more!
I just thought you might like to know about this conversation I had with the
late--and great--Steve Nurkiewicz back in the late 1980s. I'll miss him, his
FB fist, and his great insight about the musical "ring" of certain
callsigns. His QSL card is on my wall.
Vy 73, AI2Q, Alex in Kennebunk, Maine .-.-.
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From: Phil Sikes
To: ALEXM; 'TENTEC@SMTP <TenTec@contesting.com>'
Subject: Re: [TenTec] Paddles
To: <tentec@contesting.com>
Date: Thursday, April 30, 1998 12:31AM
Hello Gary and the group. As a collector of paddles, keys and
bugs I will give you my favorites.
Most of the time I use either my Jones Iambic paddles or a set
of the V22 paddles. I have a couple of the Brown Brothers
paddles and do enjoy using them also. I had a set of Bencher
paddles but did not like the feel of them for my style of
sending. I like a positive stop at the end of the paddle travel
and a crisp feel to the paddles. The Vibroplex paddles are
also very nice to use but the Jones and V22's have a much wider
range of adjutments for persoanl taste. Since this is the Ten
Tec reflector I have to mention the KR-1B and KR-50 in the
collection too. They work pretty well and they sure look good
sitting next to a Ten Tec rig.
Brown Brothers have been out of business for many years now but
I do remember hearing somtime in the past that someone had
bought the rights and machinery to build them again. I have
also heard the same thing recently about the Mercury paddles.
73 - Phil
Phil Sikes - N7UX (ex KJ7NS)
ARCI #9196 - QRP-L #528
FISTS #2602 - NW QRP #412
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