All this talk about Bugs caused a phrase submerged deep in my brain to
come quietly to the surface. 50+ years ago I was a Navy Radioman.
However I was a Radioman on a Submarine. In 2.5 years I maybe sent 5
messages as we were almost always on radio silence. We could
occasionally listen for other then official traffic. I would sometimes
listen to commercial ship to shore traffic from Merchant ships. If
memory servers me correctly Merchant radio officers back then were
required to use a Bug. A few of them had what my Chief Radioman called,
a "Banana Boat Swing". Music once you got used to it. Boy that was 50
years ago and I have not thought of that term, or heard it used in a
very, very long time.
Steve NG0G
On 7/6/23 2:53 PM, Richard (Rick) Karlquist wrote:
On 7/6/2023 10:38 AM, W3HKK@roadrunner.com wrote:
I stepped up to a keyer from my Lightning Bug in the early 90s' but
could never get the hang of both. My fist kept wanting to do the bug
W3HKK (since 1956)
First of all: "its not your fault"
There are many different keyers available, and then there are
single and dual action paddles. Some keyers have multiple
personalities to choose from. This is a huge topic to
try to wrap your mind around.
The reader's digest version is that you can minimize the learning
curve by using a single action paddle. This largely eliminates iambic
action (which you won't miss), even if the keyer supposedly supports
iambic. Some built in keyers in rigs have an option to select
"A" or "B" iambic type. On one rig I had, I absolutely could not
send with one of these selections, but the other one worked
fine for me. On my current rig, A and B seem to be the same.
I only use a single action paddle (IE, "dot" and "dash" are
mutually exclusive).
Hope this helps.
73
Rick N6RK
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Stephen Hawkins NG0G
ng0g@arrl.net
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