Homemade CW paddle

By N5COP

May 6, 2004

Back about 1982, I had been licensed for a couple of years (YB4AEP) and was trying to get my buddy, Brian O’Sullivan (YB5AEU), interested in CW. He had a working station, but couldn’t get the hang of a straight key. I suggested he get a paddle to go with the keyer he already had.

Paddles were available in Singapore, but we were in Sumatra. Since it would be another month before I returned to Singapore where I could buy one for him, I decided to make a paddle out of what I could find around the base camp. We worked for Geophysical Service Int., a seismograph company and a subsidiary of Texas Instruments. Base camp was in Jambi province, on a houseboat in the Batang Hari River.

I found some ¼ inch sheet steel, a curtain bracket, a hacksaw blade, a couple of silver contacts—distributor points out of some old truck, two grommets and a roll of electrical tape.

With the help of the mechanic’s assistant, I put together a working paddle, and sent it to him by the next helicopter going to Rumbai, where he worked as Party Chief. Below is a photograph of the relic.

A few days ago, Brian, now VE6GSI, came down from Calgary, Alberta for a visit. It was a complete surprise when he fished this old paddle out of his bag and presented it to me.

Although it’s rusty and its contacts corroded, after a quick swipe or two of emery cloth, the paddle worked as good as it did when new.

The way it works is very simple. Hook up the two contacts and the bracket (ground) to a stereo phone jack and plug it into a keyer. Move the “handle” to the left and it produces dashes; to the right it makes dots. Adjustments are made by moving the two front brackets the desired distance from the hacksaw blade. The bracket holes are slotted. The brackets are screwed into the steel base, which was drilled and tapped to receive the screws. I ground off the excess ends of the screws sticking through the bottom. The only additional thing it needs is four rubber feet for the bottom, which I didn’t bother with at the time.