A friend bought an old house that had some old ham radio stuff in it. He gave me some and I'm trying to sell the rest. I know nothing about CW stuff and keys. This ancient Vibroplex was in there with the stuff I grabbed. As you can see there is some white chalky stuff on some of the metal parts. I touched some of it and it sort of just dusts off but I didn't do anything else with it. Is this really bad? Will it effect the value? Should I clean it off? If so, with what? I haven't tried connecting it up to anything but it seems to function well mechanically.

Cool find!  I bet it will clean up nicely.

You can check the serial number here, to see when it was made.

That bug is totally sexy.

I would be forced to learn to use it.

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It says model 196457  

It appears it should be a 1956 model from the chart provided in the link above (neat stuff).

I also have a Heathkit transceiver, Heathkit amplifier, Heathkit nixie tube frequency counter and a Heathkit general coverage receiver.

The transceiver and amp are kind of rough looking but might clean up.The receiver works and I was listening to 40 meters on it with great audio.The freq counter lights up and the nixie tubes change but I can't get it to sense anything. It has a metal box on a cable with a small probe and is labled as a counter amplifier. I also got an old military PRC-6 that had been poorly painted OD green but is clean enough to eat off of inside. I grabbed a stack of Heathkit manuals and assembly diagrams. There is also a Heathkit speaker and power converter.

Oh in the middle of the pile (this house was a disaster, the guy had bad dementia) was a little bright blue Baofeng vhf/uhf portable. The house was one big pile of garbage but somehow I found the belt clip on a table. I put it in a charger and i works great. It still has the plastic protection film over the display. I guess his mental condition must have fluctuated and he would occasionally snap out of it and try to buy something new.

Thats cool as hell.



I rewired my Bug (on the bottom) into a three wire key. Made setting the speed in my FT3000 easier.

Very clever.

Nice find! That bug will clean up nicely. I think destiny has determined that it's time for you to get seriously into CW. Incidentally, Vibroplex makes an attachment called a "Vari-speed" that with proper weights will slow the bug down to about 12 WPM. It also lets you change speed with the flick of a finger.

Whatever you do, DO NOT, repeat DO NOT, file the contacts. Vibroplex has a special burnishing tool to clean the contacts. Lacking that, a crisp new dollar bill can be used. It has something to do with the fiber in the paper.

Give us the model numbers on the transceiver, amp, and GC receiver. I may be interested, especially in the receiver. I used to have one.

If the amp has 572B finals, it's a good find. Those tubes are very rugged.

Be careful when powering up the vacuum tube stuff. Old filter capacitors can short out and take out the power transformer.

Brian Murphy, VE2AGO, has a web page with instructions on how to adjust the bug. Your search engine should find it for you.

I found some information on that cord from this web site.


The cord-and-wedge was used by railroad and Western Union telegraphers years ago to connect their personal bug to the company hand key on the operating table. The wedge end would be slipped between the base and connector strip of the hand key. A typical item (shown at right) has the old style cloth covered wires with integral stay-cord which was tied to one of the bug's wire terminals to prevent strain on the wires.

Very early (and occasionally later) Vibroplex C&Ws had no maker identification on them. But most Vibroplex wedges you will find do have the company name and address stamped on one or both brass leafs - as seen in this example. A wedge having an address that matches the nameplate on your key is a nice accessory.


The cord and the case suggests that he was a professional telegrapher. He would carry the bug to work, plug it in, and send CW all day.  Very nice find.

That's interesting. I know he was in the Navy as well so maybe he did something with CW there.

I will get the info here in a bit.

I was wrong on the general converage receiver. It's not Heathkit but is a Yaesu FRG-7. I have it up on ebay. I would post a link but it would probably be against the rules here. It's likely the newest listing on there right now though. The auction has a couple of videos of it in use. The audio is great.

Okay, thanks. I was interested in a Heathkit receiver, models AR-1 or AR-2.

Sweet! The Ham who taught the club at my Jr. High school circa '72 had one of those to demonstrate.  I couldn't quite get the rhythm but it is a fine piece though.

that thing is frikkin' sexy!!!

Most Heathkit amplifiers are well worth keeping.

If it is an SB-200 or SB-220 there is a lot of aftermarket support for those. And they are very good amps.

I rebuilt one years ago and a guy named Harbaugh sold kits that were very easy to install replacing the whole power supply board.

Don't do anything rash with the amplifier until you look into it. Unless of course you have no use for it.

Edit: he is still making that stuff: Harbaugh SB-200, SB-220
I bought basically everything on that page and installed it all in an afternoon on my kitchen table. Was a very nice amp.Mine was a 220.
I also owned an SB-200 which was the first amplifier I ever bought when I was still living at home with my parents back in caveman times. As a side note, I just worked the guy I bought that amplifier from on 2 meters simplex today. I bought the amp ??? In maybe 1980???


I was going to say when I looked at the pics of the bug, that doesn't look ancient to me, I guessed 1950s.

Cool piece of history!

That white / yellow powder on some of the metal is cadmium oxide or cadmium sulfide from the original cadmium plating used at the time it was made.  I'm not a chemist so read up on it instead of taking my word, but it's highly toxic nasty stuff.  The old Hammarlund receiver I bought was really full of it.

> Brian Murphy, VE2AGO, has a web page with instructions on how to adjust the bug. Your search engine should find it for you.

Hey, thanks for that.  I bought a bug at a hamfest but I'm sure it's not set up right.

'QLP

The tricky adjustment is the travel of the vibrating arm. The gap needs to large enough for it to gain adequate velocity to vibrate properly without being so wide as to slow you down. The numbers given are starting points. FWIW, mine is set a little wide since I don't go much over 20 WPM. That's redline for me even with paddles because of arthritis.

For those that have never heard of this before, the story goes that it was something bug operators sent at the beginning of their shift to get their fist limbered up. There is a guy on or about 7.031 that sends this on the air quite a bit (I haven't heard him lately, but he at least used to send it most evenings). He would send CQ and if nobody answered, he would send Ben's Best Bent Wire a few times to attract attention, and then call CQ again.

FWIW: it only sounds good on a bug. Obviously you can send it on a keyer or a straight key, but it just isn't the same. There is a "swing" not possible on a keyer that makes it sound right. This isn't correct, according to Hoyle, CW, but it sounds good.

Adding the word: Tennessee on the end is a nice touch also.

Now that looks like fun.

It's a strange bug, though...the knobs are backwards.  At first, I though it was a left hand model.

Just tried it. I'm going to have to do that on the air!

Well now you did it.....

I've been practicing sending "Ben's best bent wire in Tennessee" with the paddle, all night.

It sounds pretty good, but t's not quite the same.  It doesn't have  that "clackity,  clackity" sound, that you get from a bug.



Now I might have to get a bug.

You can also use a bug to f*ck with those who use computers to decode CW.

Now add in the beginning: 2 2 U U 2  Bens Best Bent Wire  TENNESSEE


Obviously an electronic keyer is programmed to send precisely timed morse elements with correct character spacing. A bug allows you to take some editorial license to make this more of a musical thing rather than precisely sent morse code. Yeah, when you send this, it isn't good correct code. It is just more of a ditty. Feel free to hold out the dahs longer and ignore the correct spacing.


Then to add to the knowledge base, do a search for BANANA BOAT SWING, and LAKE ERIE SWING.
HERE is a little bit about them.

With a bug, and to a lessor degree, a straight key, you can add a little style to your sending. AKA your "fist". Back in the day, people were recognized by their fist. Someone would know who was sending just from hearing it without the other operator having to identify. Something interesting about this: I have a buddy who was a CW operator in the US Navy. This whole fist thing was a security concern. Foreign listeners would learn various operators fists and if they could find out what ship they were on, they would then be able to keep track of the other side's ships by listening to what operator was sending. When they heard that fist, they knew what ship they were hearing.
Therefore, when electronic keyers such as the Hallicrafters TO Keyer (HA-1)   came out, a lot of the military operators bought these keyers out of their own pockets because an electronic keyer doesn't have a fist. It all sounds the same.

He still uses that TO Keyer to this day and because of that, I bought one to use with my boatanchor gear.  As a side note: old tube rigs often have high voltage on the key contacts and if you connect a modern solid state electronic keyer to them, you will smoke the keyer. This isn't an issue with the TO Keyer since it uses vacuum tubes. The TO Keyer does not use iambic keying. It just makes dots and dashes. In a string.

Yeah, I'm familiar with the banana boat swing.  It can sound very good, but some guys take it to the extreme, and then the CW gets a little hard to copy.

BTW, a few years ago when I first got on the air, I was only operating on SSB.  I was rag chewing with a gentleman (Bill Harrell....I'd have to go look up his callsign) from New Mexico, and telling him that I was learning CW.  He asked if I liked country music.  I said sure, and he then went on to tell me that he had gone through CW school at Keesler AFB with Johnny Cash, and  they were roommates in Germany at Landsberg.  He said Johnny Cash was a very fine CW operator, and probably the best in their class.  He told me about a web site dedicated to the Air Force Security Forces, that he had donated some pictures to.

Interesting history, and it sure beats going to Korea in 1951 (my father had the same luck.  He was stationed in Germany (Army), during the Korean War).

Anyway, here is the web site.

This was one of the operator flaws that led to the cracking of the Enigma Machine. Certain operators had favorite character strings they like to use as message openings or closings and tying the two together gave predictable "markers" for parts of the message. "Heil Hitler" was also used a lot.

Yep, good point.
I had read that at one time, but totally forgot about it. Thanks for bringing that up.