Telegraph Keys
TELEGRAPH KEYS DESIGNED OR RESTORED BY W. R. SMITH
A PADDLE FOR TRIGGERING ELECTRONIC KEYERS Designed and built by W. R. Smith (1946)
While a student at the University of Tennessee 57 years ago, one of my classes had to do with designing and building something and writing a paper regarding it. At that time, electronic keyers for making automatic dots and dashes used for sending Morse code were beginning to be popular. Thus, I decided to build a paddle with which to key one of these for my ham station located in the 17-foot trailer of our UT trailer village. The paddle shown is the result of my effort.
The paddle is composed of two levers hinged at a common arbor. However, it is unique in the manner in which the two of them are maintained centered without making contact to either the dot or dash post. As can be seen, there is a screw through the nearest lever that passes through a larger clearance hole in the far lever and ends up with a spring and a nut. This holds the two levers together. At the far side of these levers is a spring applying a force to rotate them clockwise. However, in the nearest lever, there is a hole and through this hole is passed the end of a screw that centers the two levers in the neutral position between the dot and dash contacts without touching either. This is the secret of the paddle’s design. As the round knob is pressed to the left, the far lever remains stopped against the end of this screw but the right lever moves clockwise and makes the dash contact. However, if the paddle is pressed to the right, both levers rotate counterclockwise at their hinge arbor and the dot contact is made. As will be seen later, this design trick allowed me to design and build vertical speed keys shorter than any ever produced before.
THE MINIKEY TELEGRAPH SPEED KEY Designed and built by W. R. Smith in 2006
One day, Tom Perera showed an e-mail picture of an Ultimate 73 key made by the Los Angeles Transmitter Company many years ago. According to his picture of the key by a ruler, it measured 2-1/2” long. I thought it would be fun to see if I could build a working speed key smaller than that. So I set about the task.
I always strive to avoid copying the work of others. However, any short, right angle speed key that has the pendulum vibrating on a mainspring forces the paddle to be at the left and end of the base. Thus, I had to place it there. The resulting key is shown at left. It has silver contacts, all of the adjustments found on a normal speed key and functions well on the ham bands. The speed range is from about 15 to 35 WPM.The binding posts for attaching a cable for keying the transmitter are the two posts in the upper right hand corner. The key has three rubber feet and all metal parts are nickel plated. To save space, I designed the posts so they grip the screws to retain their setting and avoid the need for thumbnuts. The mainspring is held in place by 0 – 80 pan head screws and nuts.
The picture of the key beside a ruler shows that I have managed to beat the size of the Ultimate 73 key length of 2-1/2” by a considerable amount.The two pictures shown are of the key as first made. However, I soon discovered that it was very difficult to hold it still without interfering with the function of some of the parts while sending. There is almost no place to grasp it. To solve the problem, I machined an ornate post and a finger pad, plated them and installed them as shown in the next picture. In use, one places a finger on the pad and presses down to lock the little key to the table top. Reflections in the highly polished, nickel plated surfaces make it difficult to see some of the parts. Note the signet paddle with the “S” for Smith.
The picture at right was made before the finger pad was installed. I enjoyed making the key very much and it has become an interesting conversation piece.

I managed to find a finger ring box in which it would just fit. This makes it easy to carry in the pocket. I also quite often give viewers a set of 4” x 6” photographs of the key so they can prove to others that they are not fibbing about what they have seen. As might be expected, there has been considerable interest in the key among hams. However, I have been quite surprised at the interest shown by the general public. Here is the little key in its ring case.
THE NANOKEY TELEGRAPH SPEED KEY Designed and built by W. R. Smith in 2006
Having just completed the Minikey, I decided to build a small straight hand key. I had seen a number of small ones from the past and realized that to be of any interest, the key would need to be quite small by comparison. I made a base that had a length approximately ½ the diameter of a penny and set about making the remainder of the key to fit that base. It is shown on a penny in the figure at left. As you can see, the base needs to be pushed back to have its end over the edge of the penny. It would then look to be ½ penny in length.I then began work on the l
THE RIGHT-ANGLE MAGNETIC TELEGRAPH SPEED KEY Designed and built by W. R. Smith, W4PAL, in 2006


THE VERTIREED TELEGRAPH SPEED KEY
Designed and built by W. R. Smith, W4PAL, in 2006
Having completed the designs and building of the Monovert, Duovert and Magnevert vertical speed keys, I decided to build a key that would be identical to the Monovert but would make the dots magnetically instead of with the conventional dot spring and a dot contact post. Thus, I set to work on it. Here is the result of my effort.
On the weight rod, there is a collet and on the bottom of it is mounted a rare earth magnet. Directly beneath the magnet is a brass tube containing a small reed switch. As the pendulum vibrates, the magnet passing over the reed switch closes it and makes the dots.
The key is the same height as the Monovert and all other mechanisms are the same except for the dot making portion. However, this has resulted in a rather unexpected result. Because of the removal of friction and other mechanical losses associated with the conventional dot spring system, this key has repeatedly shown an ability to make over 100 consecutive dots before giving up. Of course, that many dots are never needed but it is interesting to have a key capable of producing them.
The key has a signet paddle with an “S” for Smith. It is heavy enough that it does not need to be held down while sending. All of the parts are made of brass and nickel plated except for the steel arbor, the bearing screws and terminal post screws. Levers rotate counterclockwise at their hinge arbor and the dot contact is made. As will be seen later, this design trick allowed me to design and build vertical speed keys shorter than any ever produced before.
No information for the making of this paddle is available. It is shown only for its interest value.
While making the key, I did color photographs of each step of the fabrication and wrote a description of what was being done. These were sent daily to my CW friend, Shelby (Coach) Rye, AD4WQ in Dixon, TN. When completed, the second key was presented to him as a gift. He has used it on the ham bands for over a year now and considers it the most favorite speed key among his collection of keys. I am pleased to have been able to do this because Coach was the one who encouraged me to start building speed keys again after a silence of about 70 years.
To adjust the dot portion of the key, the pendulum needs to be moved to the dot making position and barely vibrating. While in this condition, loosen the thumbscrew securing the tube containing the reed switch and slide it until the key is making good dots. Lock the thumbscrew.
The key has a speed range of about 15 to 40 WPM. However quite a few people have been astounded to hear a mechanical speed key make an unheard of number of dots. Aside from that, it is a very smooth operating speed key and a pleasure to use.
Like all of my vertical speed keys, it owes its short stature to my design trick of stopping the dot bar with a screw through a hole in the dash paddle. This allows the dash paddle to be rotated above the arbor instead of below it, as is the position in most speed keys. This was discussed in the description of the paddle for triggering electronic keyers that I designed over 60 years ago.
Here is a back view of the speed key. I puzzled for a very long time as to what the black area on the picture represented. Here is the answer. The vertical portion of the key is set forward of the back surface of the base on two nickel plated cylinders. A portion of each of these is seen. Then, there is a reflection of a portion of the main frame (arch) shown as two brass squares, finally, there is the reflection that contains a portion of the red contact strip. Very puzzling!
THE MONOVERT TELEGRAPH SPEED KEY Designed and built by W. R. Smith in 2005

The sketch at left shows the workings of the new key. Its base is of 3/16” nickel plated brass and its foot is formed from a 1” thick sheet of brass and is also nickel plated. As can be seen, the dash bar is hinged to the dot bar at the arbor, and the arbor is supported by bearings in the bridge and the base. The dot and dash bars are held together with a spring and a thumbnut. A second spring against the dot bar rotates the total pendulum assembly counterclockwise against the dot bar position screw. The unique design allows the position screw to pass through a hole in the dash bar to reach the dot bar.
THE DUOVERT FULLY AUTOMATIC SPEED KEY The world’s first fully automatic mechanical speed key Designed and built by BY W. R. Smith in 2006


THE MAGNEVERT TELEGRAPH SPEED KEY Designed and built by W. R. Smith in 2006


MY SMALL COLLECTION OF TELEGRAPH SPEED KEYS
Restored by W. R. Smith
After becoming interested in speed keys a couple of years ago, I began restoring some for friends and collecting a few of my own. Most of those shown above in my collection have been completely restored from true “basket” cases to those only needing cleaning and minimal repair.
Almost all of the keys are of a collectable variety and several of them are quite rare. The three vertical keys at the back of the picture are keys that I have designed and built during the past couple of years. They are described here in the Web site and details of their construction are given in my book, How to Restore Telegraph Keys.
I have a double lever Vibroplex, not shown, that I am presently restoring. It is a right handed key that someone had inverted the base and put all of the hardware on the opposite side in order to make it a left handed key. I will re-japan the base, pin stripe it and upgrade all of the hardware.