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Featured key: Repairing a worn WT 8 Amp No 2
The finished key – perhaps the shiniest WT 8 Amp No 2 ever seen! Photo: ZL2AUA
By Mike ZL2AUA
Yeah, OK, it’s just an old ZC1 key or, to be precise, a 1941 Australian-made WT 8 Amp No 2.
I thought I would bring this WW2 key out of retirement for the recent Straight Key Night, which happened to coincide with the 80th anniversary of the Normandy landings. I used it, but the action was not quite right: the knob kept going down, even after the contacts closed.
These keys were made with a tapered pin for a pivot, running in a brass bridge over the lever. As the brass wears, the action can be readjusted by gently persuading the tapered pin further in. Unfortunately 83 years of brass-pounding had worn the pivot holes slightly oval, so the taper pin bottomed out before taking up all the up-and-down slack.
Left: An unmodified WT 8 Amp No 2 key.
Right: ZL2AUA’s key with untapered trunnion pin in a miniature brass bush
The less-obvious cure was to bore the tapered holes out to parallel to take a pair of tiny self-lubricating brass bushes, and replace the tapered pin with a length of parallel-ground steel rod. The Christchurch company NZ Miniature Bearings came to the party with some 4mm steel rod and a pair of 4 x 6 x 6mm bushes.
Drill bits always cut over-size, so I drilled out the holes in the bridge with a 5.5mm drill and then bored them exactly in line with a 6.00mm parallel reamer, giving a good fit for the bushes to be secured in the bridge with a drop of Loctite. The hole in the lever was drilled out to 4mm for the rod. After polishing and re-assembling, the result is a key that looks original, unless you look very closely, and feels like a proper Morse key again.
* If you have an interesting key for this feature, please send a nice clear photo and a few words describing it.
Quick notes
Nigel Hardy ZL2TX a Silent Key. Many New Zealand CW ops will remember Nigel (pictured) who died on 17 June. Nigel (ex G3TJD) was a stalwart of the FISTS Downunder group and a former editor of its newsletter. He was a Radio Officer in the merchant navy, and later served on the Cook Strait ferries. Aboard the ferry Arahanga ZMBN, he sent the vessel’s final Morse message (to the ferry Aratika ZMFL) on 3 December 1995. Nigel lived in Otaki, but gave up amateur radio a few years ago after he and his wife Christine moved into a retirement home. (Photo: rsgb.org)
The NZART Memorial Contest is this weekend. This event has been held every year since 1946 to commemorate New Zealand amateur radio operators who lost their lives in World War 2. The contest runs 0800 – 1100 UTC (2000 – 2300 NZST) on 80 metres.
Photo flashback
Photo: A Northwood
The photo, taken in 1912 (or very early 1913), shows workers preparing to hoist one of the six sections of the aerial at Awanui wireless station, about 8km north of Kaitaia.
The umbrella-type aerial would be suspended from the top of the 120-metre (394-foot) steel lattice tower.
Update on trial runs
During June, we conducted two trial projects and here are the results:
1. The weekend NZ Net sessions (2100 hours on 7035.0 kHz) worked well for trans-Tasman signals. On the other hand, propagation within NZ was effective only at long-range, i.e. Auckland to Dunedin was not too bad, but at shorter distances, stations often could not hear each other. No doubt the recent solar activity, which has killed the higher HF bands, had some effect. But, all in all, we feel that 40m is unreliable for communications around New Zealand in the evenings. So, NZ Net weekend sessions will continue, but will be on 3535.0 kHz, the same as our Monday-Friday sessions. Dave ZL4LDY will continue as Net Control on the weekends.
2. The 15wpm sessions of NZ Net (Mondays and Thursdays at 2030 hours on 3535.0 kHz) drew a couple of newcomers and hopefully gave them a taste of net operating. The turnout was pretty low, however, and so these sessions have ended. We’re open to running them again sometime, however, if enough people express interest. Thanks to ZL2GVA and ZL2GD for being Net Control during the test run.
Net numbers
Graph shows 9pm sessions, including weekend sessions which began 1 June 2024.
NR34 R ZL1NZ 51/48 AUCKLAND 0900Z 2JUL24 = NZ NET = JUNE QNI 9PM SESSIONS VK3DRQ 24 VK4PN 12 ZL1AJY 5 ZL1ANY 19 ZL1AYN 14 ZL1BDS 10 ZL1GQ 3 ZL1NZ 24 ZL1PX 13 ZL2GD 16 ZL2GVA 15 ZL2KE 13 ZL2LN 5 ZL2TE 13 ZL3TK 11 ZL4BDG 2 ZL4FZ 1 ZL4GW 9 ZL4KX 18 ZL4LDY 21 TOTAL 248 QTC 28 = ZL1NZ
From the NZ Net poetry department
There was a Morse op named Bill
Who possessed a remarkable skill
With the sides of his knees
He could send perfect Vees
While receiving at fifty as well.
– Graeme ZL2TE
Changes to VK callsigns
The Radio Amateur Society of Australia reports that the Australian regulator has changed some of the country’s amateur radio prefixes.
- Lord Howe Island (formerly VK9) is now VK2.
- Macquarie Island and Heard Island (formerly VK0) are now VK9.
- Ashmore and Cartier islands (formerly VK8) are now VK9.
- There are no changes to other locations.
When visiting Australia, the prefix to add to your callsign is now:
- In mainland Australia and Tasmania, which now incudes Lord Howe Island: VK.
The state level prefix (VK1-VK8) is no longer required, but can be used instead of VK if desired. - In Norfolk Island, Mellish Reef, Willis Island, Cocos Keeling and Christmas Islands: VK9.
For more information, see the June 2024 edition of RASA’s QTC magazine.
Night of Nights at KPH/KSM next weekend
Photo: Maritime Radio Historical Society
In cooperation with the Point Reyes National Seashore, the Maritime Radio Historical Society’s Night of Nights XXV will take place on 13 July 2024 (UTC).
On 12 July 1999, the supposed last commercial Morse transmission in the USA was sent from the Globe Wireless site in Half Moon Bay, California. While it was a sad day, it was also the date the Maritime Radio Historical Society (MRHS) was founded with the goal of restoring historic coast station KPH to operation. One year and one minute later, transmissions resumed from the historic transmitter site in Bolinas, California. Every year since then the event that came to be known as Night of Nights has commemorated the men and women who made the profession of radiotelegraphist one of honor and skill.
The opening Morse message for Night of Nights will be transmitted at 0001 UTC.
Listeners around the world are invited to participate by monitoring the transmissions, including memorial transmissions and a salute to now-silent coast stations. These will be transmitted by Coast Stations KPH and KFS.
Amateur radio operators may contact the MRHS amateur station K6KPH to send messages and exchange greetings.
Details for stations KPH, KFS, and K6KPH, including times and frequencies, are on the Maritime Radio Historical Society’s website.
Yes, that is a right-handed Vibroplex with a left-handed operator, a not-uncommon situation. 🙂
Morse challenge
Mark ZL1MRT continues his experiments with EMITSO code, as described in NZ Net News 131.
Here’s an excerpt from one of his recent tests using computer-generated Morse. It was sent on 40 metres from Auckland at a power of 3 watts, and received in Taradale with decoding software. The Morse speed was 70 wpm. The received signal was weak, so the message was sent eight times to provide sufficient error checking capability.
Each of the eight transmissions shown below contains errors (notice that Mark’s callsign was received correctly five out of eight times).
Your challenge is to be the error corrector. Review the eight snippets below and use a simple voting approach to decide on the probable first three words of the message (the words following the callsign). Being EMITSO code, each word has six characters, with possible values of E, M, I, T, S or O.
ZL1TTRT TETIME EEMM E TI IOOETI ... ZL1MRT TETI ET SMMSTI IOOETI ... ZES1MRT TETIME SMMI TI IOOETE ... ZL1MRT TETIME SMMSTI IOMEETI ... ZL1MRT TETIME SMMSTI I E E II ... ZL CHMRT TETIME SMMST E IOOETI ... ZL1MRT TETIME SMMSTI IOOE EI ... ZL1MRT TETIME SUMSTI IIEI ...
Please send your answer via radiogram or email to ZL1NZ.
Answer to previous Morse Challenge
The Dunduplex key was made by Thomas Dunn. Correct answers were received from G5VZ, IK0PHU, VK3DRQ, ZL1ANY and ZL1HJ.
Further to “SQ Pacific”
In the last newsletter, I asked if anyone knew what “SQ Pacific” meant. It was contained in the Morse Challenge of NZ Net News 134. You might recall that in that recording, ZLZ/ZLX (Himatangi Radio) announced that it was about to transmit “TROPICAL MARINE WEATHER BULLETIN FOR SQ PACIFIC”.
Bob ZL1AYN suggests a possible clue: “After delving through the Ships’ Code and Decode Book which lurks in the further-most corner of my bookshelf, I think the answer would be Pacific Ocean South Latitude, East Longitude. See the tables below:
“I could be wrong though.”
Thanks Bob for coming up with this excellent research. It sure gets confusing, doesn’t it? In the first table, the Q number indicates the quadrant of the globe, but in the second it indicates the octant.
Quadrants and octants seem to have been used in sending analysis code, which I talked about in a previous NZ Net News, whereas the message preamble we heard from ZLZ/ZLX sounded more like a plain-language forecast to me.
Perhaps the ZLZ/ZLX operator meant to send SW (not SQ) Pacific. Q and W are next to each other on a QWERTY keyboard, so maybe it was a typing error in preparing a tape for transmission.
Anyone else have an idea?
Video: Development of Morse Code
I hope you didn’t cringe too much at the narrator’s pronunciation of Edinburgh!
This video is part of a 15-part series called Information Theory: Art of the Problem.
Advertising archive
ARRL: Radio Amateur’s Handbook, 1947
Suggestions?
If you have suggestions on how to make the NZ Net better, or things you’d like to see covered in these updates, please contact ZL1NZ. You might even like to write something for the newsletter.
Thanks for reading, and I hope to hear you soon on the NZ Net!
—
Neil Sanderson ZL1NZ, Net Manager
New Zealand Net (NZ NET)
3535.0 kHz at 9pm NZT Mon-Fri
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