High Tech VS Skill

[KA4DPO]

Last night I called my brother in California to shoot the breeze. We talk on the phone pretty often but I could never interest him in Ham radio. My brother is a die hard golfer and is very good, he carries a 4 handicap. Not a pro but no slouch, the best I could ever muster was a 6 and that was 15 years ago I'm not that good now.

The conversation turned to clubs and the various merrits of each and the fact that a lot of would be golfers buy incredibly expensive golf clubs thinking it will make them better. Trouble is, they never really learned how to hit the ball in the first place. If you think about it, the worst guy on the PGA tour could kick your butt with a set of K-Mart specials.

When things got phillisophical I reminded him of Chester. Chester was a friend of our grandfathers and was one of my elmers when I was a kid. Chester had been a radio and land telegrapher in WWI and knew both international and american morse code, he was equally comfortable with either one. Chester gave me my first key, an old wood and brass key that I lost somwhere along the way. Anyway, Chester could send at 25 wpm (faster in a pinch) with a straight key as good as any Curtiss chip.

I told my brother that just like the golf club weenies I knew a guy that paid over $600.00 for a custom iambic and he can barely send 5 wpm without errors. I wondered why he didn't buy a cheaper key and spend the money on something else.

You know what they say, it's not the arrow, it's the Indian.

[K7JEM]

A mechanic could have the best Snap-On tools, or the worst stuff from the dollar store. If he's good, he's still good. The mechanic that buys Snap On thinking he will be more skilled is deceiving himself.

A good code op could probably make a key from a tin can and some nails, and do a better job sending code than most of us.

Joe

[w8znx]

what kind of bunk you boys slinging

sure a telegraph key is simply a tool

but how many professional mechanics
do you know that use cheap tools

dollar store tools
give me a break
only fool does not know
that cheap tools are more expensive
than good tools

sure
there are people
that own high end keys just for show

same as some guys that have not
so much as changed the oil in their car
in over 20 years have a full set of
expensive tools in the garage

the guy with all the woodworking tools
that never got around to making so much
as one bookcase

but building a wood boat or running cw

there is nothing like using the best tool

you can get by running a junk key

but heck
spend any real time running cw
you might just as well get the best tool

a tool that will last the rest of your life
something that not only looks good
but feels good to use

after using a few well made expensive
keys, straight, semiauto, and paddles

excpt for field work where
i am not going to take my good keys

there is no way im going back to using
some junk like a J-38

( anybody that says a J-38 key is a great key
has not spent any time using a well made high end straight key )

Mac

[KI4NNL]

I can almost.. almost argue that point. I am in the woodworking industry, and with the advent of CNC routers, high end finishing equipment and everything else, most of the very best craftsmenship (were talking almost art items) that demand the very highest dollar, are coming out of shops that are doing it by hand or with tools FAR from being "the best". # Some of them are using the same tools I have in my shop, makes me sick to compare the results they get compared to me, but hey, it gives me something to shoot for. #So I will say, good tools are nice, but very rarely reflect the skill of the owner of those tools.

[w5alt]

Well, I'm sure that Michael Jordan could play basketball barefoot better than most of us, but he still chooses to wear decent shoes. Sure, a high priced key won't make someone without any skill into a first class CW operator and a really talented CW operator could probably do better then me with 2 wires.

Who cares? I choose keys because they are what I like and can afford. If I could afford it, I'd probably buy one of the really high end GHD keys. As it is, I only have about $500 dollars invested in various keys. But I have no illusions about my keys or a top-of-the line GHD making me better, any more than using my IC-756 Pro II makes me better than when I was using my old Heathkits. I like the new rig better and I could care less whether someone else thinks I should spend my money on cheaper keys, radios or tennis shoes.

73,
Walt, W5ALT

[K7JEM]

Mac, I'm comparing tools, and the people that use them. Sure, a good mechanic is probably going to have a good set of tools. Like wise, a good CW op is going to have a good key.

But a poor mechanic with good tools is worse than a good mechanic with cheap tools. A good code op with a dime store key (or a pushbutton switch) is likely to be far better than a crummy op with a $300 key.

Tools are instruments in the hands of a craftsman. There is an old saying "It is a poor craftsman that blames his tools".

I knew a kid in electronics class back in the 70's. He was the worst student in the class, was barely eeking by. He went out and bought a $400 HP calculator to help him out. Guess what? He was still the worst student in the class, but he had a cool calculator.

Joe

[KI4NNL]

Yeah, didn't make my posting very well, sounds like I am slamming when I was trying, really badly, to express how some of the most amazing work and skill is not reliant on tools at all. # Its Friday and I am stuck at work waiting on clients to call so I can get the heck out of here. I think though my brain went home already. http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/sad.gif

[K0RGR]

There are big differences in keys, and it's a matter of personal preference.

My dad had a set of Lionel paddles - yes, made by the Lionel train company. I don't know why, but they just worked better. It was easy to screw the tension down and adjust the gap so that there was never a perceptbile movement of the paddle, but a fairly light touch would cause it to send. My Vibroplex paddles are almost that good, but the adjustments are simply not fine enough. I've never gotten a Bencher to work that well.

I'd never pay $600 for paddles, though. I don't spend $600 on anything if I can possibly avoid it - I don't have many spare $600's roaming around.

I'd prefer to use a keyboard and freeware or cheapware.

I'd like to have my dad's old Vibroplex and some other bugs back, though, just for an occaisional blast from the past.

[KD6NIG]

You can say this about anything.

In High school I took one quarter of touch typing. Figured it would be better than the hunting and pecking I did at the time.

I barely passed the class and dropped it after one quarter. I was told that I should not look at my fingers at all whatsoever. I found that I was faster than most of the people in the class by reading a line then looking at my fingers and typing it. Course, thats not the proper way of doing things.

But, having worked on computers before and after the class, I have since "self taught" myself to type roughly 68WPM. Its simply because I use a dang keyboard so much, I now know where everything is.

Ask my typing teacher and she would to this day say that I should have never learned that way, that I'm probably still sacraficing speed. I don't think I am, and I don't look at my fingers now.

Sometimes it doesn't matter how you learn something http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

But, my brother took the class for a year, learned it thier way, and does 80WPM so who knows. I think he's just got faster fingers, but who knows. Hes also on a computer typing much more than I do also.

Some things it is a matter of quality. Some its a matter of commitment. Some its just finding a good way of learning something and learning it that way.

Depends on how it goes, I guess http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif