[TenTec] Omni VI Keyer Control Mod

[John Huffman]

Last week I asked about any thoughts on how to spread out the keyer speeds on 
the control of the Omni VI internal keyer.  In the end I bought a 5-turn 10K 
pot.  It arrived today.

To make the swap you first have to remove the old pot.  This means disassembling 
the front panel to some extent.  You do have to take off all the knobs (.05" hex 
key for the small ones) so that you can get to the secondary panel to loosen the 
nut holding the keyer speed pot.

The hole on the secondary panel has to be enlarged to 3/8" to accommodate the 
new control.  Watch the shavings as you drill to keep them out of the good 
stuff.  After removing the old pot, the new pot fits nicely.  The pots I bought 
have three connections - #1 gets the brown wire, #2 gets the white wire, and #3 
gets the purple wire.  The terminals are marked on the body of the control and 
are not in order.

After attaching the wires, I re-assembled all that I had disassembled and was 
back in business.

Now a full turn of the control is roughly 15 - 28 wpm.  Of course, it still goes 
down to 10 and up to 60 by turning all 5 times.

As it worked out, I set 20 wpm at the pointer's 12 o'clock position on one of 
the turns.  Now each mark on the panel is 1 wpm.  Sure easy to set speed.

The only downside is that the shaft of the new control is about half as big 
around as the 1/4" shaft of the old one.  The old knob works fine, but its turns 
are not concentric.  A shim would fix this.

I have three controls left and one is spoken for.  If anyone else wants one they 
cost $3.95 plus postage.  Or, you can buy them from Electronix Express directly, 
but they have a $20 minimum.  If you want one of mine, just drop me an email and 
we can figure out the best way to send it.

73 de K1ESE
John