Dennis, As one who is afflicted with peripheral neuropathy, I can somewhat empathize with your situation. Although I do have demonstrated decreased nerve conduction velocity and numbness in my fingers, I'm still able to manage iambic keying in the 35-40 wpm range. If you're wanting to try "single-lever" keying, you don't need a single-lever key. Just use your iambic paddles in single-lever fashion, that is do not squeeze, but close the dit and dah contacts in sequence, not at the same time. As a CW instructor, I encourage my students to get an iambic paddle at the outset since it can be used in either mode as their preference dictates after they try both methods. A single-lever paddle rules out iambic. At least one other responder suggested experimenting with varying the mechanical width of the lever finger piece(s). I have several iambic paddles and I do find a wider spacing more to my liking.
I think every CW operator has a unique set of parameters that work best for him/her. I'd recommend that you go ahead and try single-lever keying with your iambic paddles as a first step. Hopefully, you'll be able to then tweak other parameters to get where you want to be. Since you're still above 30 wpm in copying ability, maybe you can find the sweet spot combination of paddle configuration that will make it happen for you. Good luck! 73 BILL GERTH, W4RK Jefferson City, MO First Licensed 1954 CWOPS #459 4 States QRP Group KX3 (S/N 112) On Sep 29, 2013, at 9:25 AM, "Dennis L. Haarsager" <haarsa...@gmail.com> wrote: > Although I've been licensed since 1965 and able to put some sort of HF > signal on the air during almost all of that time, my activity level was > relatively low (a couple of hours a year) from 1977 through 2011 due to > career and family. For the past two years, I've been semi-retired and > getting my activity level up, but I'm frustrated that my CW sending without > mistakes has plateaued in the low 20s whereas my receiving ability is still > over 30 wpm. At first I thought I was just out of practice but, believe > me, I've done a lot of off-the-air practice. > > I have a nice K8RA dual lever paddle that I use with my K3 and the KXPD3 > for my KX3, which of course is an iambic paddle. I have the same problem > sending with both and have experimented with a number of settings. The > KXPD3 was initially worse, but the Elecraft mod kit was an improvement so > it's now on a par with the K8RA paddle. > > Recently LA3ZA posted here and included a link to his excellent blog. > There I found an article on single-lever paddles and their use by many > high speed operators (tusen takk, Sverre). < > http://la3za.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-advantage-of-single-lever-paddle.html> > I see, too, that Begali's HST model for high speed work is single lever. > > This led me to think that maybe what's caused my sending to decline in the > last 35 years is that I've gotten old -- more specifically, that I've > gotten arthritis which is fairly pronounced in my right forefinger (it now > takes a "dogleg" to the left and there's a nodule on the joint nearest the > tip). So my ability to squeeze the paddles as fast as my "CW brain" is > working is probably impaired over what it was back in the day. > > So that leads to some questions. Does this theory make sense to anyone > else? Has anyone switched from iambic to single-lever because of this? > Improvements? Has anyone put a non-iambic paddle on Elecraft's wish list? > Does anyone besides Begali make a single-lever paddle for the KX3 (I'm > tempted by its Adventure Mono model)? > > 73, > Dennis Haarsager, N7DH > Hillsboro, Virginia > ______________________________________________________________ > Elecraft mailing list > Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft > Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm > Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net > > This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net > Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
