I encourage any hacker to take a look some time at the beautiful 'bugs' still (!) made by Vibroplex [1].
I have wanted to learn Morse ever since I read The Victorian Internet by Tom Standage [2]. I know people use keyboards nowadays---and even software to read Morse and translate it automatically into text---but I want to learn to send it by hand. Do you recommend a straight key or a bug to begin with? (I just love the look of those beautiful machines with tiny pendulums and jewelled bearings and neodymium magnet 'springs'...). I also wonder about electronic keyers with paddles. What works best for a beginner who wants to develop a good 'fist'?
> Do you recommend a straight key or a bug to begin with?
I'm biased because (before the computer era) I never used anything but a straight key. I recommend a normal telegraph key for beginners -- they're easier to control and they produce an appreciation for the simplest possible form of radio and wired communication:
-- is of a real antique, but one still available today. Unchanged, it dates back to the land telegraph era, during which one operator, when finished sending, would throw the switch visible at the top center, thus closing his end of the circuit and allowing the other end to reply, in what was a simple two-wire one-battery telegraph circuit.
Interestingly, in 1859, there was a huge solar and geomagnetic storm, much bigger than anything that has happened since, and one of the few contemporary indications was that the telegraph system went crazy:
A quote: "Telegraph systems all over Europe and North America failed, in some cases shocking telegraph operators. Telegraph pylons threw sparks. Some telegraph systems continued to send and receive messages despite having been disconnected from their power supplies."
It is estimated that, were such a storm to occur today, it would bring modern electronics -- and society -- to its knees.
> What works best for a beginner who wants to develop a good 'fist'?
Well, one, listening to good sending certainly helps. Also not trying to send too quickly at first, and listening more than sending until one acquires a sense of what good telegraphy sounds like.
I agree with your remarks and extend them such that bugs and keyers usually are not built to operate slowly enough for folks starting out to use them.
Start with the straight key, and at some point you'll be able to hear faster than you can comfortably send for long periods, and start wondering what technology would allow you to send quicker... that's the time to start looking at bugs and paddles and electronic keyers and memory keyers and morse keyboards and all that kind of stuff.
Maybe bad analogy time is learn to type on a classic traditional keyboard (model M?), then start looking at the infinite array of ergonomic keyboards.
Thank you! I'll begin with a traditional key, and listening.
My keyboard is an IBM Model F [1] through an interface from Hasgstrom Electronics. It has the Control key and Escape key in the old places, essential for vi.
I have wanted to learn Morse ever since I read The Victorian Internet by Tom Standage [2]. I know people use keyboards nowadays---and even software to read Morse and translate it automatically into text---but I want to learn to send it by hand. Do you recommend a straight key or a bug to begin with? (I just love the look of those beautiful machines with tiny pendulums and jewelled bearings and neodymium magnet 'springs'...). I also wonder about electronic keyers with paddles. What works best for a beginner who wants to develop a good 'fist'?
[1] http://www.vibroplex.com/
[2] Standage, Tom. The Victorian Internet. New York: Walker and Company, 1998. ISBN 978-0-8027-1604-0.