[CQ-Contest] Single versus Dual Lever Paddles

[Vladimir V. Sidorov]

Barry,
The yours truly has been one of organizers of the previous HST World 
Championship. Concerning paddles and keys, all the participants I have seen 
were using homemade keys with built-in paddles. What I have heard from them 
is, likely industrial made paddles do not allow to send at a really high 
speed, and they use very precise paddes made by very unique specialists 
under a special order.

If memory serves, most of the paddles I've seen were single levered but I 
remember for sure that least one key had a switch "iambic - non-iambic".

(As for me, with some 30 years experience with a single lever paddle it was 
very difficult to go to iambic one. It took almost a year to accomodate to a 
Bencher paddle which is really an excellent thing, but still it is very 
difficult to send at really high speeds w/o mistakes).

BTW, there is a great difference between us HAMs and the HSTers. They send 
to be sent, we transmit/send to be heard... Barry, you will see what I mean 
next month...  :-)

73,
Vladimir EU1SA

---


> Bill,
> I have been doing some QRQ practice over the last month or so for the
> upcoming HST.  At first, I was having a terrible time sending numbers
> with my dual lever paddle.  I tried a Vibrokey single lever paddle
> (thanks to W8FJ for lending it to me), but after a few days, I
> decided the dual lever paddle is much better.  The problem with
> signle lever paddle is the horizontal back and forth excursion is
> just too great for the very high speeds.
>
> Perhaps it would be different with a modern, precision-made single
> lever paddle, but I'm not aware of one. I could be wrong, of course.
> I've used a Bencher dual lever paddle (won at the last run of the
> Dayton CW receiving contest in 1990) for many years.  I recently got
> a Begali paddle and the difference is amazing.  The lack of play in
> the paddles and the precise spacing adjustments are night and day.
>
> We'll see if it helps me next month at the HST!
>
> 73,
> Barry W2UP
>
> P.S.  Feel free to forward this to any of the other interested
> reflectors of which I'm not a member.
>
> On 17 May 2005 Bill Tippett wrote:
>
>>          I recently saw comments somewhere about
>> K7JA "slapping'" the dual lever paddle during the
>> Jay Leno show indicating he had learned on a
>> single lever.  This caused me to question whether
>> dual paddle (iambic) keys are used by the transmit
>> Champions of High Speed Telegrapy (HST) as
>> determined in the annual IARU HST Championships.
>> The simple answer is:  NO.
>>
>>                                  73,  Bill  W4ZV
>>
>> Andrea, IZ4FHT wrote:
>>  >By the way, when I met Lazlo HA3NU (a guy who sets the keyer to
>>  60wpm
>> and calls it "slow" ;-) at a big italian hamfest in Pordenone a few
>> weeks ago, he said he preferred single lever paddles, especially for
>> truly extra-high speeds.
>>
>> W4ZV (in a PM to Lacy HA3NU):
>>
>>          Very interesting!  I noticed you were IARU Region 1
>> coordinator for the HST Championships at one time.  I've
>> heard that many operators from former East Block countries
>> prefer single paddle and wonder if you know if that is still
>> true for the top HST championship results (in Transmit)?  It
>> appears many former East Block competitors still dominated
>> the top TX results in 2004.
>>
>>          I also prefer a single paddle and have never seen the
>> benefit to switching to dual paddle.  I'm just curious
>> about what type of paddle the top HST TX guys use.
>>
>>                                    73, Bill  W4ZV
>>
>> HA3NU's response:
>>
>> >Hi Bill,
>> >
>> >It was interesting to see how fast news go around the world ie. my
>> >sentence about speed. Hi Hi To tell the true I said for 60 WPM (that
>> >was set on the rig) "This is less than 60, it is approximately 50 WPM
>> >only" 60 WPM is hard to TX for me too. You know it well, most of HST
>> >competitors prefer single paddle and vast majority of top contesters
>> >use home brew paddle! The 2004 results are still OK. The next World
>> >Championship will be in June and may be new records will be born
>> >again. Barry W2UP will be also there, I am almost daily contact him
>> >by Email. Should you know other things of HST, I am redy to answer to
>> >you.
>> >
>> >73 Lacy HA3NU
>>
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>
> --
> Barry Kutner, W2UP              Internet: w2up at mindspring.com
> Newtown, PA                     Frankford Radio Club
>
>
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