# Morse Keys



## TheMorseLearningLad (Sep 23, 2016)

Hello!

I am new to the forums! As my mis-spelled username I am a lad learning morse code. I am also interested in Maritime morse code.

Anyone mind posting below what key you used during service? A PICTURE WOULD BE GREAT!

My Friend's dad used a Japanese JRC Radio Key & later used a Nato Marine Key.

~TheMorseLearningLad from NZ


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## Andy (Jan 25, 2004)

TheMorseLearningLad said:


> Hello!
> 
> I am new to the forums! As my mis-spelled username I am a lad learning morse code.


Hi and welcome to SN, I have altered your username to your desired choice.
cheers,
Andy


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## Engine Serang (Oct 15, 2012)

"I am a lad learning morse code".

May I ask why?


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## BobClay (Dec 14, 2007)

If you go to the Radio Room forum and track through the threads you'll find some on morse keys. I've linked just one here, but several members put up pictures of morse keys they used and are still using in their posts.
http://www.shipsnostalgia.com/showthread.php?t=145378


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## Varley (Oct 1, 2006)

I always used the key provided and for all but one trip that meant Marconi Marine. I remember the 365 EZ although on Tilapa it must have been an earlier model.

I have just got an Instructograph from Ebay to play with. Not bad for practicing your receiving under perfectly clear conditions (not that I do).

Don't mind Engine Serang. Plumbers can spend hours nostalgiating over their first chrome plated Bahco or first sniff at the Thistlebond.


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## TheMorseLearningLad (Sep 23, 2016)

Well Engine Serang, I love retro things. I love morse code and 40s music. Hate anything music beyond the 60s. Except for jazz. Titanic book that described the extremely talented radio operator inspired me to learn morse.

Oh and by the way, thank you to the administrator for changing to my preferred username.


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## Engine Serang (Oct 15, 2012)

Chrome plated too flash for me. Dark matt grey steel, 8 inch just the right length for nipping up weeping glands and rapping disrespectful leckys over the knuckles.

Since retiring I've taken up German and painting in the style of Paul Cezanne, with limited success. Morse code now sounds pretty mainstream, bye rodger, over and out. Echo Sierra.


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## Ian Hay (May 26, 2013)

If you want to listen to "real" maritime morse,then have a look/listen to the "500kHz recordings A9M" thread. I thing you will find it interesting,perhaps encourage you to learn to read Morse Code.
Us oldies find it very nostalgic (Thumb)


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## gwzm (Nov 7, 2005)

Marconi 365 keys in their various variations were the keys used on all of the ships that I sailed on back in the 60s. I have a 365EZ that I use as part of my amateur station when I'm able to get on the air.
"Google" Marconi Morse key and you'll find lots of images on the internet.

Happy days


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## BobClay (Dec 14, 2007)

Engine Serang said:


> Echo Sierra.[/QUOTE
> 
> Surely that should be Alpha Romeo. ditdahditdahdit. (Jester)


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## Troppo (Feb 18, 2010)

This one:


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## TheMorseLearningLad (Sep 23, 2016)

Very nice electronic keyer there. It seems that no one uses a speed key or bug......


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## Varley (Oct 1, 2006)

I was never good enough to proceed to a bug key and they were much frowned at unless used by the expert. I did try one once or twice. The more amusing at Armuelles Radio where I was allowed to have a bash. I made a fairly good hash of the 'dots' to which the duty officer said "what's a few dots more or less?". You should not be able to distinguish the key type if the operator is any good.

Another useful general instruction is "Don't send faster than you can receive". No use rattling off with your bug key if you cannot read at the same speed as repliers will expect.


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## cajef (Feb 8, 2012)

Bug key


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## BobClay (Dec 14, 2007)

Does anybody here every send morse just for the hell of it when you're working with switchable items, like say a hand drill or electric screwdriver. There you are sending CQ CQ CQ DE on the drill and you suddenly realise other people are looking at you and frowning and you try to hide under the nearest rock, now matter how small it is.

[=P]


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## Dave McGouldrick (Jan 1, 2007)

BobClay said:


> Does anybody here every send morse just for the hell of it when you're working with switchable items, like say a hand drill or electric screwdriver. There you are sending CQ CQ CQ DE on the drill and you suddenly realise other people are looking at you and frowning and you try to hide under the nearest rock, now matter how small it is.
> 
> [=P]


I realise I'm doing it when the missus gives me a belt across the back of the head


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## beedeesea (Feb 28, 2006)

BobClay said:


> Does anybody here every send morse just for the hell of it when you're working with switchable items, like say a hand drill or electric screwdriver. There you are sending CQ CQ CQ DE on the drill and you suddenly realise other people are looking at you and frowning and you try to hide under the nearest rock, now matter how small it is.
> 
> [=P]


Not with drills, etc., but can't resist anything that resembles a key, such as a clothes peg, stapler, et al. A carry-over from college days is using my fingers to send names of stations, advertising signs and similar, when travelling on a train. (The golden rule being that you musn't have your hand in your pocket while doing so, especially if you're using a sideswiper!).

Brian


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## BobClay (Dec 14, 2007)

(Something tells me beedeesea came close to being arrested a few times, standing on a railway platform, sending Morse on a clothes peg in his pocket. I leave you all to deduce what the charges might have been.)(Jester)


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## beedeesea (Feb 28, 2006)

Another case for Inspector Morse. You make it sound like I was big into S&M, Bob!

Brian


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## BobClay (Dec 14, 2007)

I never thought about the S & M thing ... (*)) ... I'd probably get arrested for that myself if I was doing it with an electric drill (LOL)


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## cajef (Feb 8, 2012)

BobClay said:


> Does anybody here every send morse just for the hell of it


I find myself going through my old ships call signs using the pull tag on a beer can, after I have empty it of course, drives the misses mad if we are watching the TV at the time.[=P]


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## BobClay (Dec 14, 2007)

So it's true then, sparkies do all go 'portishead' in the end ... (Jester)


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## Paul Braxton (Jul 21, 2005)

Used to sometimes do it with key-type things, like biros and pegs. Now I use a real Marconi 365B key, given to me a while back by a friend who rescued it from the NZS Co's "Rakaia" when she went to scrap in the '70's.

At first I just used to enjoy playing with it alone. Then I had the idea of investing in an oscillator kit. Now I can send away at whatever tone of sidetone I like, for as long as I like. Nice to use and lovely to hear the old morse again. My wrist is still more or less exactly as it once was, I'm pleased to say. Maybe oneday I'll invest still further and go in for a CW amateur rig.


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## trotterdotpom (Apr 29, 2005)

#23. "At first I just used to enjoy playing with it alone. Then I had the idea of investing in an oscillator kit."

There's a lot of seatime behind that bit of wisdom!

John T


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## Paul Braxton (Jul 21, 2005)

Yeah... too much time alone...


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## Naytikos (Oct 20, 2008)

Troppo, post 11:

Where does the coffee come out?


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## Troppo (Feb 18, 2010)

I used that on my first trip. The chief R/O looked at it like it was from Mars....especially when I programmed in the JCS calling sequence, pressed the PLAY button and sat back....

(Thumb)


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## trotterdotpom (Apr 29, 2005)

Troppo said:


> I used that on my first trip. The chief R/O looked at it like it was from Mars....especially when I programmed in the JCS calling sequence, pressed the PLAY button and sat back....
> 
> (Thumb)


Wouldn't it be easier to just send that with a key? Just saying like?

John T


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## Troppo (Feb 18, 2010)

Not on HF.....


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## trotterdotpom (Apr 29, 2005)

What was so difficult on HF? JCS were easy to get hold of, we're not talking about West Africa. Mind you that gadget would have been hopeless for contacting all those Mickey Mouse stations where you had to wait and pounce after their traffic list.

I must be a freak, I liked bashing a key and making contact with the outside world.

John T


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## BobClay (Dec 14, 2007)

It's all a question of taste. I did both kinds of keys but thought my Samson Electronic keyer was magic, especially for long grinding report messages. The memory was just used for calling, not general sending. I could squeeze an OBS message into the memory if I linked it together, but it wasn't really worth the effort, because first you had to put it in, i.e. send it. And then if the guy at the other end touched his key to interrupt you had to pick that up and crank the rest of it out anyway, so it wasn't worth the bother. But for calling ... ? (think those Pacific sector watches Portishead used to do) it was very handy.


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## sparks69 (Dec 18, 2005)

I can't think of any thing to say about bug keys so I will not.


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## trotterdotpom (Apr 29, 2005)

I didn't like buying my own biros, I certainly wasn't going to buy a morse key.
I wonder where the name "bug key" came from?

John T


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## BobClay (Dec 14, 2007)

I carried my own key, my own meter (much as I like the Avo it's about as useful in the Engine Room as a grenade with a loose pin) and up until joining CP Ships (where they were provided) my own typewriter.


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## Paul Braxton (Jul 21, 2005)

You carried your own typewriter, Bob!? Now that is amazing. I thought taking a music centre (a fairly small one) plus 12 string guitar was quite a hoist, but a typewriter? Wow. 

I never sailed on a ship which had one, apart from the Old Man's on Benline. So when the teleprinters came out with Sitor telex I was able at last to put to good use my college touch-typing training. 

Once heard it said (of someone who was a tad overweight) that they were carrying the equivalent of a portable typewriter around with them 24/7. It put me off eating too much for years!


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## BobClay (Dec 14, 2007)

It was a small portable I bought in Newcastle in 1970 while aboard a Stephenson Clarke Flattie. I learned to touch type at a Sight and Sound Centre (basically brainwashing) in Edinburgh while I was training for PMG2. My handwriting was never that good, and I took morse on a typewriter from early on (this came good for me when I joined the Cheltenham mob.) So for several years, I carried a typewriter all over the world.


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## Troppo (Feb 18, 2010)

One of the best skills my first chief taught me was to take wx on the typewriter...


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## trotterdotpom (Apr 29, 2005)

A Filipino 3rd Mate taught me to type and I practiced like mad during a 6 week stay in Archangel. Came in handy when I joined SSM and did a lot of purser duties,spending my spare time typing bloody crew lists.

As for carting my own typewriter around - what the qwert?

John T


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## richardwakeley (Jan 4, 2010)

The maker's plate logo on a Vibroplex key is a bug, don't know if that's the origin.


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## Ron Stringer (Mar 15, 2005)

My Remington portable was about the size and weight of today's laptops and accompanied me on every ship. Only my first ship, Fyffes _'Golfito'_, had a typewriter in the radio room (an elderly Underwood, only there so that we could copy the twice-nightly GTZZ broadcasts and produce the text for the passengers' daily newspaper). I never sailed on any other ship that provided a typewriter.


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## trotterdotpom (Apr 29, 2005)

Typewriters seemed to make an appearance in the seventies. Always a good idea to position them fore and aft - otherwise the carriage was liable to disappear when the weather you were typing came to fruition.

John T


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## M29 (Apr 20, 2007)

Troppo said:


> One of the best skills my first chief taught me was to take wx on the typewriter...


Yes WX Ice reports were good on the typewriter.
I used to pre-type the football results setting the TAB to the space for the result. On the first broadcast of the results from the world service, you could just type in the numbers as fast as the guy spoke them. (our company didn't subscribe to the pools service)

Best Wishes

Alan


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## Jonathan H. (Jul 3, 2015)

A couple of weeks ago, I bought a Marconi 365B from the Chippenham Radio Rally. Not particularly a bargain, but not bad considering what they have gone for on E-Bay.

Anyhow, mine has had the lid paint stripped off the top and has been polished (but not recently). I assumed this was something that was done by Hams etc that aquired them when they were removed from service. BUT was that the case though? Were they often stripped of paint and polished in ship's radio rooms? 

Mine also has a few black residue streaks inside the lid (still painted) - evidence of second use as an ashtray no doubt!

Cheers
Jonathan


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## Ron Stringer (Mar 15, 2005)

It was a fairly common sight back in the 1960s (not on any ship I sailed on - I had a strong aversion to polishing brass) but I was surprised just how many ships I went aboard when working ashore for Marconi and which had a shiny brass cover on the Marconi 365 key. Even found one on an RFA tanker that I worked on in Palmer's yard at Hebburn.


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## Jonathan H. (Jul 3, 2015)

Thanks Ron, that's interesting.
I was going to get some paint matched and spray the lid back to its original colour.
However, if it was common to have the brass showing whilst in service, I might just leave as is. 
Cheers
Jonathan


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## Paul Braxton (Jul 21, 2005)

Hi Jon. What have Marconi 365B keys gone for on Trademe, as a matter of interest?


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## Jonathan H. (Jul 3, 2015)

Hi Paul
Not sure about TradeMe, but I did find reference to one on EBay a couple of years ago that had sold for over £200. I paid £100 for mine and considering that's about the same as a new Kent hand key, I was quite happy!

A couple of 'A's have gone for £125-£150 recently and EZs and FZs for around £175 to over £300 in the past year or so.
Typical EBay up and down prices.

It does seem that the Bs are perhaps the more sought after out of the series though.

Cheers
Jonathan
M0ZGB


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## Ron Stringer (Mar 15, 2005)

Jonathan H. said:


> A couple of 'A's have gone for £125-£150 recently and EZs and FZs for around £175 to over £300 in the past year or so.


Versions of products with the letter 'Z' suffix were designed in the Elettra House drawing office and made in the MIMCo (Marconi International Marine Co. Ltd.) workshops. Other versions were designed by, and made in the factories of, MWT (the Marconi Wireless Telegraphy Co. Ltd.


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## Jonathan H. (Jul 3, 2015)

R651400 said:


> The 365B was probably one the best engineered British morse keys ever with its trunnions sitting in ball-race bearings.


Mine is one of the ball-race variants.

I was reading that there are/were two trains of thought regarding whether ball-raced variants superceded sleeve bearing variants or vice-versa. One being that the 'B' being developed in WWII was that as ball-races were needed more and more for the war effort, Marconi switched to sleeve bearings. A kind of Morse key 'Chicken or the egg' scenario. 

Jonathan


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## Paul Braxton (Jul 21, 2005)

Why was the Marconi 'knob' considered an 'achilles heel', I wonder?
(Post 49)


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## BobClay (Dec 14, 2007)

What I see here is a dispute between the forefinger and middle finger together two finger senders, and the thumb, forefinger and middle finger knob grippers (please don't read that the wrong way.) (LOL)

I'm not taking sides on that one, whatever fits your grip is how I see it. Besides which I skinned out of the debate early on and got my Samson Electronic keyer (thumb and index finger.)

(Smoke)


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## TheMorseLearningLad (Sep 23, 2016)

Did radiomen change the dreadful knob on their administered Marconi keys? I have seen one for sale a long time ago with a American Luftwaffe flameproof key knob.


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## retired R/O (May 18, 2014)

Hi morse learning lad
I might have something of interest to you. My email is - deleted email - please communicate via PM system initially.
Drop me a line, we will talk.
Pierre


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## hawkey01 (Mar 15, 2006)

Pierre,

As per site policy I have deleted your email address. This is for your security/safety.
You can receive messages via our - Private Message - system. If you wish then you can disclose your email address. 

Hawkey01


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## sparks69 (Dec 18, 2005)

We have a wren in the garden that chirps in morse sometimes.
......................or is it me ?


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## BobClay (Dec 14, 2007)

sparks69 said:


> We have a wren in the garden that chirps in morse sometimes.
> ......................or is it me ?



Another sparky gone Portishead ... (Jester)


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## trotterdotpom (Apr 29, 2005)

sparks69 said:


> We have a wren in the garden that chirps in morse sometimes.
> ......................or is it me ?


Hasn't she got a ship to go to?

John T


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## sparks69 (Dec 18, 2005)

ex-sparks please !


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## BobClay (Dec 14, 2007)

There are only ex-sparks these days, sadly.


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## trotterdotpom (Apr 29, 2005)

BobClay said:


> There are only ex-sparks these days, sadly.


Old sparkies never die, they only QSB.

John T


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## tiachapman (Mar 25, 2008)

gogle morse code translator


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## BobClay (Dec 14, 2007)

trotterdotpom said:


> Old sparkies never die, they only QSB.
> 
> John T


I always knew beneath that crusty exterior there was an old fashioned romantic trying to get out.

[=P]


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## david.hopcroft (Jun 29, 2005)

When amateur morse tests were done by the PO then BT, I got through about a dozen a week, using this very key. I could send 12wpm all day. At £15 a time that was a nice little earner in those days. Now, according to ebay, it seems, they are an investment ! 

David
+


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## richardwakeley (Jan 4, 2010)

david.hopcroft said:


> When amateur morse tests were done by the PO then BT, I got through about a dozen a week, using this very key. I could send 12wpm all day. At £15 a time that was a nice little earner in those days. Now, according to ebay, it seems, they are an investment !
> 
> David
> +


David, I did the amateur morse test at Burnham sometime in 1968 or 1969 while I was still at college doing my PMG. Now I wonder if you were the examiner that day. I passed by the way. 
Richard/G3YEP


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## BobClay (Dec 14, 2007)

I took it at Burnham as well in about 1981. Asked to go first so I could get back on the M5 and drive home. Long day.


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## david.hopcroft (Jun 29, 2005)

All my tests were at GKZ in the late 70's, early 80's. Reading the post again, it looks as though it was a 'nice little earner' for me. Sadly not though, as it went in to BT's coffers. I think people liked a day out at the seaside, it was a popular activity. 

David
+


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## Rvator (Aug 27, 2012)

Hello people - being a newbie to SN have wandered through a few forum posts and arrived at this one.

I still find myself unable to give up 'morse code' although I don't do it out load as I would risk being put away.

I have a call sign that hasn't left my grey cells after all these years and it still flows smoothly. As if to remind me of the considerable hours I spent banging it out this string is embedded in my brain.

GKB GKB GKB DE GPDA GPDA GPDA QTC QSW 624 K

GPDA belonged to Houlder Brothers tanker 'Joys McCance'

I have bad memories of manual morse keys, after not too many trips I began to suffer from carpel tunnel syndrome in my left wrist (being left handed). To alleviate the pain I taught myself to send morse right handed and then suffered the same fate. In the end I got hold of a Samson ETM-3B paddle morse keyer which I used successfully.

I flogged the Samson on eBay around a year ago, I still had the original box and receipt and it fetched not far short of what I paid for it if you ignore inflation.

Out of interest as if to reinforce I haven't forgotten morse code I was visiting the Marconi Centre at Poldhu Mullion in Cornwall and amongst the exhibits as you would expect were a number of morse keys connected to buzzers. Of course I couldn't resist it, a bit slow on speed but all still there. (Poldhu amateur radio club GB2GM)

The other place well worth a visit is the Cable and Wireless museum at Porth Curnow Penzance. It's a facinating place especially in respect of how it integrated with the 'area scheme' which was something I missed out on entirely. They had morse keys too .......

Rgds
Bob


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