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I love beautiful old Morse keys!

I have a modest collection of them.

I prefer a straight-key over an electronic keyer.

Years ago I built a simple crystal controlled RF oscillator on 40 meters. It used a single pn2222 transistor and at 20vdc put out a very chirpy 6/10s of a watt. I wound the coil on a plastic 35mm film container.

I regularly communicated with stations in California from El Paso...using a simple inverted vee antenna.

800+ miles

I still have that ugly little oscillator somewhere...if I run on to it I will take a picture and send to you.

BTW: I actually ground the crystal myself using a quartz blank for an FT-243 holder.

I used to use toothpaste to grind the blanks on a small sheet of glass...if you got the frequency a bit too high you could pull it back down by marking the crystal with a pencil...an old-timers trick :-)

FT-243 blanks and holders are very scarce now.