Topband: Bugs

[Stephen Hawkins]

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 at 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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> Reflector

-- 
Stephen Hawkins NG0G
ng0g at arrl.net
73 49 111 01001001