I had an regular on-air friend, a life-long bug user, who, after a long absence, suddenly reappeared using a keyboard. It turned out a stroke cost him most of the motor control of his hands, but he could hunt-and-peck with one finger to send using a keyboard.
You're both examples of the great range inventive operators who overcame what many of us might consider insurmountable difficulties to have fun and share your lives and interests with the rest of us. You're a great inspiration! Ron AC7AC -----Original Message----- Hi Ron, Not exactly. What I have is a couple of small pneumatic switches (mounted in the large wooden box seen in the photo) which I operate by sipping and puffing on a tube attached between the two. Each switch activates one of the two relays you see mounted at the lever end of the bug. A light puff or blow through the tube activates one relay (the bottom actuator) which presses the bug lever to the right (from the operator's perspective) sending dits. A sip on the tube activates the other relay (on top) which presses the bug's lever to the left and closes the dah contact. I'm not very good with the bug, but I use it to ragchew with my elmer WB4CSG one or two times a week. When not using the bug, I send CW using a sip-n-puff device and either a radio's built-in keyer or an external keyer. The March 2004 edition of QST featured an article describing a sip-n-puff device similar to the one I use. http://w4dit.wilsonarc.org/images/fd05/sip-n-puff06.jpg http://w4dit.wilsonarc.org/images/fd05/sip-n-puff07.jpg I also have a sip-n-puff creation which "emulates" a cootie key or side-swiper, but I am absolutely terrible with it. Awful. Unreadable. I'm lucky if I get two characters sent before I screw up. My mind just refuses to work that way. Sam, my elmer, can send near-perfect code with it. 72 Greg K4KO Tennessee QSO Party - September 10 http://www.k4ro.net/tcg/tqp/rules/tqp06_rules.html _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: [email protected] You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
