01/23/2008 | NO5W Armenian School Boy Training Key Meets WWII Spy Radio - I've participated in Straight Key Night before but never to the extent I did this year and I've never turned in a log before. I really enjoyed SKN this year mostly because I had some interesting rag chews. I had about 2.5 hours in nine QSOs using a little Armenian training key (see picture) I purchased from a local ham a few years ago who had spent a lot of time in the oil fields of Armenia. Except for the contacts it is mostly plastic but I found it to be quite a good little key considering how it was made. My longest, and most interesting, QSO lasted for about 35 minutes and was with K9VKY. The interesting thing about this chat was that he was using an old spy radio from WWII. That, in itself, conjured up thoughts and images of where that little radio might have been and how it might have been used, but the thing that really made it interesting was that I had received the book The Secret Wireless War as a Christmas present and had just begun reading it when I ran into K9VKY. He told me about his radio and I looked in the back of the book and sure enough there it was. The QSO was like an interesting live addendum to the book.

73/Chuck -- NO5W