Mini Morse Key - the smallest key you have ever seen?

I saw this key, on ebay, a couple of months ago... and thought it would be nice to have a brand new key in my collection... so far, I have only been able to afford cheap secondhand keys, so when I sold the old FRG 8800, I used the cash from that to finance this key.... it cost £30.68p and was advertised as "from China"... however, the package that arrived through my letter box, surprised me..... firstly because I never expected to get the key through the letter box,...( I expected a small packet to be collected )... and secondly, because the place it was posted from was Belgium ! ... When I opened the jiffy bag, I was again surprised at how small it was.... even smaller than my thumb !...

Anyway.. I took a few photographs of it, and then connected up with a spare lead and clipped it on to my Admiralty Pattern 7681, to connect it to CWCOM.

 I did some adjustments to the spring tension, ( a small nut at the back of the rocker arm).... and the gap.... adjusted by the black knob and the big brass washer as a "lock" device......... Did a short "off air test" .. then opened CWCOM.....  As luck would have it, Barry VK3HAP in Melbourne Australia, was on CWCOM, and he was the first QSO I had with the mini morse key...   He said that it sounded good.... and I must admit,... I thought so too !...

Here is a short video of me doing a test transmission.... click on the small square at the bottom right for a full screen experience... don`t forget to turn your speakers on... or put your phones on....

To make sure it stays in place... I used a blob of "blu-tack" underneath the key.... otherwise, it needs to be held down with the left hand.. ....

Problem Radio

This article has been re-named.... due to the fact that it has now been sold,.... the radio is no longer available. 


This FRG 8800 has problems... yet it does work !.  Here is a short video.....

Put your `phones on, or turn up your speakers...... the music you can hear faintly in the background is from a T.V across the room... ! 

The known problems are.... the push buttons on the top right corner for the clock are not in their correct positions... seem to have been misused . not sure if they work or not... never used them...

The channel selector switch runs from 1 - 4 then goes 1-4 again then 9 thru to 12. Again, never used the memory channels so not a problem for me.

It did have the "flashing dial" syndrome.... however, an attempt has been made to rectify this, by retuning one of the cans on the PLL board, and also the addition of a resistor and capacitor as the "official" mod by Yaesu... This has not been 100% successful.... and it still does flash intermittently... Recently I have been running a soak test on it... and the following is a record of behaviour.

Tuesday
19:30   switched on

23:59  switched off........... NO flashing... 100% solid for 4.5 hours

Wednesday
13:00 switched on
13:45  flashed for about 20 seconds..... then went stable again
1348   flashed for about 20 seconds..... then went stable again
14:00  flashing for about 1 minute ..... then went stable again
14:01  stable
16:00 swithced off    total 3 hours with only a short period of instability.... 2 hours stable.

Wednesday evening. ( same day ).
 19:30 switched on


23:30 switched off    total 4 hours stable.... ( total for the day 7.5 hours  with only a few minutes of instability)

Thursday
20:30  switched on
21:00 flashed for 20 seconds

23:30 switched off.

Stable ( apart from 20 seconds ) for 3 hours...

There does seem to be a volume problem, where it will suddenly reduce with a click, and then come back again with a click.... but this is not associated with the flashing display... it can happen any time....

The main Power Supply Unit has had a replacement electrolytic capacitor installed for testing purposes, but this did not make any difference to the flashing display..( the original was re-installed ). Also the two Power Transistors on the chassis near the PSU have been replaced....  Again, this has made no difference to the flashing display. ( the new ones remain in place ).

There is a switch on the rear for 12v. operation, however, this mod has not been installed, and does not work on 12v.

A copy CD of the manual will be included in the sale......

As this is being advertised as Faulty but Working... there will be NO RETURNS.. it is "sold as seen and described".

German Morse Key

When I joined the Royal Navy in 1960, I wanted to train as a Radio Operator, mainly because my dad had tried to teach me morse code, and also gave me an interest in radio as a hobby.  He had a German Morse key which he said was from a  German Tank in WW II, However, since owning this key, and doing some research, it turns out to be a BAUMUSTER T1 which was used by the Luftwaffe ( German Air Force)  ( Signal Troops ). .. ground stations, and mobile vehicle radio stations,.... When I passed out from training, he gave me the key, which I took with me on ships and shore establishments...... until... I loaned it to a "mate"  ( huh!).. who did not return it...

I missed that key quite a lot, and had many happy memories of using it, and so, I have been looking on Ebay to try and buy another.... Lucky Me !... I won an auction, and here it is....

It is exactly the same as the one I had, Except, my original had a metal plate on the base, that reached under the knob to give it stability....

There isn`t much to refurbish on this key.... the casing is Bakelite, and all I needed to do was to give it a spray of WD40, and use an old toothbrush to clean off the mess of 80 years.!.. Inside, it is relatively clean... just a little bit of rust, but not a big problem.... The parts are all steel, and remarkably clean of rust, however, I did use my rotary wire brush on the rocker arm, to brighten it up... then I sprayed the whole lot with some spray-on lacquer, to give it a nice "new" shine. The old wiring was cut off, as I needed to put a 3.5mm jack on the end, to connect to my USB/Serial connector and my Laptop, so I can use it on CWCOM, and talk to the world for free!...

A couple of points about the pics... There is a "date" mark, on the bottom  with " 8. 116  1934/36 " , and a "logo" .....  inside the top of the case, there is another date mark " 9. 140 1934." ( and the same logo). .. So I am assuming it is "of that age", making it 80 years old...

I don`t know what the other marks refer to...  so if anyone has any information, or ideas ? ? ?   please contact me and let me know.... I would like to know what the "logo" represents too... Also the Ta.P on the lid.... The other German on the lid, says " Remove the plug, before opening"... ( health and safety ! ! !)..

Here is the key... cleaned and ready for action..  I made a wooden base for it, which I will probably paint black, in the near future...

Here is a video of me telling part of the story..... There is no "crib" on here.....I will let you read the morse!!!

Just remember to click on the "full screen" icon, bottom right... and also have your speakers or phones on..!.

Sorry about the "light" on the video.... I could not get my desk lamp to light up the key properly, but you can see that it works well....  and it is a nice addition to my other four keys.....

From Left to Right....

German Key. Baumuster T1. (1934) ..
Hi Mound HK-705 (1970`s?)
Admiralty Pattern 7681 (1943) 
Ward & Goldstone, Pendleton, Manchester, England. (1905)
Rebuilt A.P. 7681
( my original key, rebuilt by a friend who made the base, as reward for lending him the key to sit his morse exam - he passed !) ...

BIG ZOOOOOOOM Bridge Camera. Panasonic FZ70/FZ72

This is a story of BIG ZOOOOooooOOOOOM ! or how I re-kindled my interest in photography as a hobby. First of all, I am not an expert, and all information is given as "just that"... information.. you use it any way you want to, at your own risk!.... My first digital camera was a very basic model... it had only got 3 x digital zoom... no optical zoom... it was small enough to put in my pocket and made taking pics "on the fly" quite exciting, knowing they would not cost me anything to develop and view, using the computer.. after a couple of years, I "moved on"... and got me a Fuji bridge camera with FIVE TIMES OPTICAL and 4 x digital zoom... what a leap !.. and most of my pics on my website http://www.nemosphotography.co.uk were taken with that camera, I was a happy "tog" for a couple more years.... ... until......  I started to get greedy !.. I wanted MORE ZOOOM ... So I decided that the next step would be the upgrade of the FUJI to 18X optical zoom... but... it failed to impress me, the pic quality was poor, the colours were not good. so... I returned it, and scanned the internet for a replacement... along came the Panasonic FZ28.. with 18 X zoom... and 4 x digital... GREAT... this camera "worked" right from the first shutter press !... then I managed to find a friend, who gave me a Sigma 1.4X teleconverter lens, and it "just happened" to fit the FZ28 by screwing onto the lens barrel....

In this blog, I have reviewed several "add-on" telephoto lenses, that screwed on to the FZ28, but none came close to the Sigma... by various devious methods, I managed to improve the FZ28 basic 18 X optical zoom to 30X optical zoom... ( add on the sigma 1.4 then drop the mpx count to 10mpx).. still had the 4 x digital, so potentially got 120 X zooooOOOM.. ( drop the mpx even more, increases this again)... Well, the FZ28, served me well, but because I took it everywhere with me, it used to get put on the floor of the car, behind my seat, and over a period of 5 years, it starts to get a bit tatty,... and because of that, I decided it was time for another upgrade.... considered 3 cameras, but again, the Panasonic Lumix came out on top... Very Wide Angle 20mm and VERY BIG ZOOM...60X... topped the other two... combine them with the LEICA LENS.. unbeatable...

...I went to a local camera shop, and had a quick "handle" to see how it felt, and also to price it... (December 2013) £369.00 not including a memory card... so decided I would wait until after Christmas/New Year, for the sales to drop the price... NAH!.. could not wait that long... looked on the net, and Jessops had the camera for £320..00  + a 25% discount on a memory card... BUT.. they also had a price match offer... did some research and eventually paid £110.00 less than the orginal retail price... + got 25% off an 8 Gb Sandisk card giving me about 1500 pics !. So got on the phone, and ordered it.  Almost exactly 24 hours later, the camera was delivered to my door !.. Have only taken about 200 pics with it, but I am seriously impressed with it...

The 60X would probably scare some people, thinking that they MUST have a tripod to use that zoom.... Oh No... the stabilization is brilliant... I am amazed that it is so good hand held... Oh, yes.... I dropped the mpx count from 16 to 10 and my Optical ZoooOOOOM is not 60 x but 72X.... When going to "max" on the zoom lever, it now shows 379X zOoooOOOOM. !.. yeah, it is "grainy" or "noisy" at that zoom level, but it is really for fun, that I go to that extreme... I don`t intend to print anything bigger than A4... in fact, I can`t remember the last time I printed any photographs that I had taken... !.. so having a "noisy" pic of a plane in flight, is just that.. a pic of a plane".. or a ship... far out at sea... great fun to take....

My old FZ28, was not renowned for being good in low light... however, this FZ72 seems to cope quite well... Was out visiting family, and as usual, had my camera with me.... 12yr old daughter was in front of her laptop, with the window shades drawn, ( against the afternoon sun)   and no other lighting in a fairly dark room... spur of the moment, decided to zoom in on her eye.... no special settings, just the same as if I was taking an outdoor pic on my C settings... Was amazed at the sharpness, and clarity of the pic. 

You can see ZOOOM pics on my Flickr photostream.... http://www.flickr.com/photos/32369450@N02/11622156264/in/photostream  use the little arrow on the right hand side to progress through the series to see the final ZOOOM pic.... The zoom on the eye is called "Eye Test".. and you can see the results of "Low Light"... no photoshop, no tripod, etc... here..  http://www.flickr.com/photos/32369450@N02/11731184874/in/photostream

Well, There you are... still got loads of things to find out about this new camera.. but so far, cannot fault it... !.

Admiralty Pattern 7681 Morse Key - Refurbishment

My "posh" morse key is made up from parts of an Admiralty Pattern 7681 morse key, that I had when I was in the Royal Navy....Recently, I have hankered after getting another one, and refurbishing it, so that I had an "original" to show people what it looked like before my friend made the superb wooden mounting.  A few days ago, I spotted a rather shabby looking example on Ebay... so I put in a bid, and won!... when it arrived, it did not disappoint me.... it was in a horrible state.... so I began to clean it up a bit, and then took all the bits off it, and gave them a polish up with my wire brush on the electric drill... Now I have it back together again, I have given it some testing and it works just like it should do... you can see this on the video at the end of this page.... Pics are in no particular order, and the whole job took me about 6 hours work... but not all at once... I am very pleased with the finished article, and it now has pride of place with my other keys on my desk.... I use CWCOM ( a free internet chat program, that allows the use of any kind of morse key to communicate with other like minded persons in CW or morse code...Great fun)... to make use of my keys, and can connect them all together or just use one at a time... If you are interested in Morse and would like to chat.... look out for callsign GEMS on CWCOM... 73.... VA. AR dit dit..


Please Note.... To see a larger version of each pic... just double click on them !.... 

 

How the key was advertised on Ebay...

The pic above really does do it justice !.. it was horrible, when I got it out of the box...

First of all I gave it a spray over with WD40.... and left it to soak in for about an hour... Not only did it free off most of the nuts and bolts.... but it helped to clean up the bakelite base and knob.... I did not make a big effort on the bakelite, as I wanted it to show some "age" despite my refurb efforts making it look like new.!..

So I took the rocker out first, and noticed that the holes for the pivot screws were well worn.. I decided to give them a drill out using the next size drill, just to make them "round" again... As the pivots on this key are "pointed" screw threads, they need to be able to hold the rocker steady, but at the same time, by making sure the pointed screws are not screwed in too tight, to give enough "play" in the pivot so that the rocker will move freely in the up and down rocking motion.  Too slack, and the key is likely to stay "on" .... too tight, and the key will need a lot of spring pressure to bring the key "off".... the ideal is to use as little spring pressure as possible, whilst maintaining the steady stable rocker arm...

After doing the drill work.... I decided to remove the knob and all the other screw fitments, and rubbed the rocker arm on some very fine wet and dry paper.... this has brought up the brass base to a nice "antique" look "glow"... Next the big rusty screws that are the pivot points... made of steel, these had a good coat of rust on them, so I put them into the electric drill and with the wet and dry, made the points shine.... also cleaned up the heads and threads....

The Rocker arm after cleaning, and drilling the pivot holes.  

The springy bit underneath the rocker arm is the electrical connector from the rocker to one of the contacts on the base.... Remember, when these keys were made ( about 1940 ) transmitters used very high voltages at the key, hence the "skirt" on the knob, as a spark deflector..

Whilst all the bits were removed, I started to give the base a good clean up with just using a clean cloth, and a prod to get into the corners... no polish was used, as I did not want it to look "brand new" when I had finished...

The Bakelite Base.... with all the dirt and stuff removed !

Once the base was cleaned up, I noted that there is no serial number on it.... however, that does not mean it is unused.. it certainly had been well used, judging by the wear on the pivot points... just as I was about to continue with the other metalwork, I noticed the letter WG painted on the serial number corner.... (unfortunately, the WD40 removed the paint !... but the mark can still be seen)...  These letters refer to the company that made the key... Ward and Goldstone... Which is quite interesting, because I recently purchased and antique morse key, and that was made by the same company in 1905... see further down the blog for this key...

Showing the mark of W.G. in the serial number box for Ward & Goldstone manufacturer

Once all the base had been cleaned, it remained for me to spend some time cleaning all the individual bits and bobs, that make up the key... to do this, I bought a £1 rotary wire brush head, put it in the electric drill, and each piece, held in a vice, ws given a quick brush up... Amazingly, they all cleaned up to look like GOLD !... that took about an hour and a half... then, all that was left was to remember where they all fitted back on the base,... and .... Just look at the difference !....

Here is a short video of me testing the key after it had been connected to CWCOM.... Put on your speakers, and click on the little square , bottom right hand corner for a full screen version !....  .

DIY Wedding Photography !

Anyone who takes pictures can do weddings..... true? or false?   Well, in my humble opinion... both are correct.... it just depends on how "good" you are at organising your shots and the people in them, and the backgrounds, and the lighting, and the tea and coffee, and the sandwiches.!... etc..,.. Yes, I have been asked to be the Photographer at a couple of weddings, by family and friends.... I am still part of the family, and I still have my friends... Why? because I refused to do it.... Wedding photography is an area that needs a lot of preparation, and prior knowledge, mainly with your equipment, and your own confidence to be able to pull it off well.... the biggest problem with Wedding Photography is.... you only get one chance to get it right... and if you don`t ..... you are likely to ruin somebody`s "Best day of my life"... event... Having said all that, I was the Mate, on the M.V. Richmond, a trip boat, on the Chichester Canal, for the Wedding Reception... The people who hired the boat, did all the decoration and provided the food and drink, as a normal landlubbers reception would be... the Bride and Groom turned up, with the small guest list, and came on board.... at that moment, their photographer, left the scene.  We sailed as scheduled, and about halfway through the journey, we stopped at a jetty at Hunston, for the guests to stretch their legs, and view Chichester Cathedral from the same vantage point as JWM Turner, for his painting.... I took the opportunity of asking the bride if I could take some pics of them, and the guests, to which she agreed... I wanted to do this for my own "entertainment" as much as anything, so I took myself off and we made some pics.... I suppose I must have taken about 40 in a period of 20 minutes.!.. however, when I got home after the trip, I then started processing them, to get some "good ones". and dump the ones I thought were not worth keeping.... One or two looked as though they might deserve more treatment than a crop or contrast operation.  Anyway, the results are below, and I don`t claim to be anything other than an amateur photographer who enjoys taking pics...

M.V. Richmond - ready to receive Bride & Groom

 

Interior of Richmond waiting for the guests

The Bride & Groom, at the helm.

Bride & Groom, ( taken from the roof of the Richmond)

Top... Original    Middle... Cropped    Bottom.... Given the B&W treatment

Again... the same pic with B&W treatment for "vintage" effect

Now for some "magic!".... the original , below, had too many "onlookers"  in the background, when the happy couple should be the centre of attention, and should be made to appear that way... It took me about an hour to remove the background and replace it with "grass"... using a free program called PhotoFiltre.  First I used the "lassoo" tool to draw from the bottom edge of the pic around the happy couple leaving about 10 or 15 pixels from the actual edges of them and finishing at the bottom of the pic on the other side.... .... then I used the "paste as new image"... which did just that... it left the outside around them white... I used the cut and paste order to bring in some "grass" from the original background, and then by carefully adjusting the brush size I used the "clone" ( stamp ) tool to infill the space,,.. reducing the brush size, and at the same time over magnifying the pic ( 400x in some cases) to be able to touch up to the edges ... I think the result for a "quick job" is not too bad... so I may well be a bit more careful on the next job !...

Original Pic.....

Original Pic ( too many "onlookers" ! ! )

"Onlookers" removed !

"Vintage" Black & White !

Even More "Vintage"  Sepia

And of course, at any wedding, there is the obligatory "group photo".. so I managed to gather everyone together with the Bride & Groom on a convenient bench, climbed onto the roof of the boat again. and took the "group photo"....

After that, there was just one more pic to take, as the Bride & Groom, prepared for their voyage into the future......

                               Good Luck to them, and may they have a long and happy time together.

CWCOM "mobile" operation !

Here is a short video of me, sitting in the car, outside the Chichester Ship Canal Shop, using my mini laptop, a local free wifi connection, and my Hi-Mound HK-705 straight key on CWCom.... a bit difficult as I had the camera in my left hand....!...

(the break in the sound was caused by the web page "phoning home" and updating ! ! )...