10.000U$ in Ashdod city garbage site

Article written by our beloved friend R/O Daniel Yari 4X1FC  (s.k.)

On the year 1963 I was attending, a two years course, preparing for the examination, to issue Maritime Mobile Radio Officers license (P.M.G). We were a group of 24 young men, just shortly, dismissed from the army service. All of us were experienced CW operators, from different army units, and had operated in harsh conditions, like on rolling torpedo boats, galloping command cars, tanks, pounding sand hills, or in a self dug pit in a muddy terrain. None of us was a Radio Amateur, and a Morse code key, was simply a working tool, with no emotional or artistically referenced. We were all imprinted by the army communication training- base logo: “The message must pass”. That meant that nothing else is important, so naturally the quality of the key was not an issue in our talks.

The CW training room was all equipped with the Danish G.N.T. (Great Northern Telegraph) items. Start with the student’s personal pump handles, to the machine monitoring the lengths of dashes and dots on a paper ribbon. Toward the end of the course, we all developed an appreciation to the quality of the keys, especially with the devotion of one of the instructors, who was a radio amateur, 4x4kl, that dedicated few hours to teach us the special qualities of the keys, how to adjust it and how to keep a good maintenance of it. Even so, except me, no one of the licensed R/O became a radio amateur. Even with me it was a long term, gradual evolution. I believe it started with the fact that on any new assignment I would find a different key that I had to get used to. So I bought a “coffin bug” and built the Heathkit HD-10 electronic keyer, to carry with me, but both were almost useless on the ships, and a professional pump handle was much easier to master or to interface with multi-wires keying lines. Even that I never thought, that a mentally and physically healthy individual will go, on his free time, to have his job as his hobby,  I went ‘down to the street’ and became an amateur. On the other hand, I could not foresee how much recreation and cure to the dismay of life events, the Ham radio activities brought, and even not on the air, just restoring a good key.

It took me some 20 years, within the hobby and unintentionally, to start a collection. I found myself attracted, to a secondary hobby of chasing and trying to master, any kind of keying method. To do this, called for purchasing the different devices on the market. After I gave up my resistance of being connected to the internet, I found out the endless universe of manufacturers, home brewers, collectors, documentary literatures etc. all about code keying. Immediately it became clear that GNT keys are very rare and that there were few other manufacturers that built, much the same, with different names, among them the Amplidan mk2. Also, it became obvious, that those keys are highly respected, as every collector or vendor is displaying it even as “sold out” or “not for sale”.

Among quite a few distinctive features, that makes those keys unique, the most meaningful are the followings:-

1. The lever arm is held in a state of “dynamic equilibrium”. There is a spring force slightly acting upward (The S shaped metal strip) and the, screw controllable, spring acting downward. This helps the operator, to feel in continuous control both directions. Also it helps to performs round full-bodied strings of dots.
2. The Ohmic track, to create the short circuit, is not passing through screws or pivots, the conductivity of which is not stable, but through the large S shaped metal strip, that is permanently in contact with the moving contact.
3. The two contacts are each mounted on a flexible metal strip, so that during the touchdown period it are slightly skidding one against the other, and thus creating an automatic self cleaning.

Well, I hope that I did not describe something that the manufacturer did not think about…

On the year 1999 CW was about to cease being standard bylaw mode, for international maritime mobile communication. A ship Radio Officer (Sparks or Sparky) would be a vanishing profession. The Global Maritime Distress and Safety System – GMDSS 3 or 4 categories of licenses were about to replace the R/O, by new safety regulation for the on board communication personnel and equipment. On that year the “ORT” nautical school, in the city of Ashdod (A southern Israeli port), closed the R/O qualifying courses, and dismantled all the equipment, from the CW practicing hall, and replaced it by the equipment for highest category of the GMDSS requirements. I joined the first or the second course for the GMDSS category – General Operator Certificate – GOC.

One day, during a break between two sessions, I was talking to one of the instructors, and asked him what kind of keys they had, and what are they going to do with it. His answer was that they had 11 GNT keys, and just yesterday he had packed it all in one white cloth bag. I went on, not knowing its value on that year, and still not being a collector, I asked if I may have them all or one of it. His answer was that he put it in a room corner that was closed at that moment, but asked me to call him on the phone the next day so he can arrange it for me.

Last June 2010, I was on one of my frequent visits to G3YUH – Ron projects site, were he displays an original Amplidan MK2 and the replica 1:1 that he did. Via the E-Mail, I asked if he has any for sale. His answer was that the original is on auction at e-Bay site and I may try to get it from there. Well, on 8 June 2010 12:38 Pacific Daylight Time, it was sold, not to me, for 937U$ with only 39 bids. It is still displayed in the site.

OH! Sorry dear readers, I almost forgot to tell you,  on the “next day” on 1999 I was told, on the phone, that the sanitary employee, of the Ashdod nautical school, loaded the bag with the keys on the garbage collecting lorry, later to be discharged at the city garbage site.

Composing the 1999 event with that of June 2010 tells us that there are about 10.000U$ in the garbage of Ashdod city. Those who have Morse keys sniffing ability may try to detect the bag among the other scents. As for me, from 1999 and on, I home brew replicas simply from readymade components sold for furniture’s drawers. One example is displayed below.

My innovation is to assemble the pivot by two screws pressed and locked against a metal ball:

73’s and GW!