There was a discussion about this just recently in the BrassPounders
news group on Yahoo. The attractiveness of Ultimatic is not its
effeciency - it is attractive to a number of cw operators because of
its ineffeciency! That is, its forgiving coordination requirements.
I bought a very nice iambic paddle - but just couldn't "control" it -
all those unintentioned dits or dahs. So I got a single level paddle
(vibrokeyer, Kent SP-1, etc.) and that worked okay. But moving an
object left/right has a little more fatigue factor than just a
squeeze.
Someone brought up Ultimatic mode and mentioned the Jackson Harbor
Keyer II - which provides Ultimatic. A cheer was raised in the news
group. Now those of us who are timing challenged can use the same
high quality, and plentiful, selection of iambic paddles. So we only
squeeze the paddles, no side-to-side as with a single level paddle.
And we get more predicable results.
The "four sound" letters sometimes take more effort than iambic - but
look at a "P". squeeze and hold the dit, squeeze the dah to insert
two dahs, release the dah for another dit. Not so bad.
But again - it wasn't an argument about which is "better" or more
efficient. It was just that some of us have struggled with the auto
dit/dah of iambic and Ultimatic mode lets us use our iambic paddles
but in a more relaxed manner.
73,
Paul, K7NHB
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