----  Electronic Keyers are GREAT kits for first time kit builders!  ----
and they are great confidence builders, too!

For the past two years I have used the internal keyers in my IC-746, IC-706Mk2G and FT-817 and been satisfied with their performance.

UNTIL I BOUGHT AN OUTBOARD KEYER KIT !!!

The Super CMOS 3 partial kit from Idiom Press is $58 (April 2003) which includes shipping and all onboard components.  You supply the cabinet, the speed control, the knob and all input/output jacks and power source. This allows you to customize the cabinet and labeling and you can pick and choose the control and switches that "feel good" to you!

The Island II Keyer kit from Jackson Harbor Press is $32 (April 2003) which includes shipping and all onboard components including a MOSFET keying transistor and two onboard tone and weight adjustment pots.  You supply the cabinet, the speed control, the knob and all input/output jacks and power source. This allows you to customize the cabinet and labeling and you can pick and choose the control and switches that "feel good" to you!

The last kit I built was the NorCal Keyer Kit from the American QRP Club.  The cost is a phenomenal $15 which includes shipping!  Works nicely -- with 3 memories!  Everything a casual ham or backpacker would need to operate QRP from the trail.  This is the smallest of my keyer kits because I built it to use external power.  I use  gel cell batteries to power my rigs when portable and it was easy to add a small radial power connector for the keyer. You need to supply the case, connectors, speed control pot and the memory switch but a very nice board and all the on-board parts are supplied.

After laying out the boards and all the components I commenced having fun.  The boards went together quickly and they all worked the FIRST TIME while still laying on the workbench before I had put them into their cabinets. The thrill of hearing them key out the first time when I applied power was a great feeling, let me tell you.

What took the most time was finding the switches and the 100K linear pot that felt good and designing and printing the labels. I created my labels using CorelDraw 10 but any good graphics program will create your labels.  I used Avery 8165 full sheet labels and a piece of heavy lamination sheeting to protect the label and make it glossy. After a quick trip thru a local electronics parts store I found the parts that I needed and the total cost was less than $11. Use good quality switches (spend the extra money else you will be disappointed when you complete your keyer).  Don't use the cheap red switches from "You Know Where". Remember, every time you use your keyer over the coming years you will be exercising one of the six switches -- make it a GOOD switch!

They all key my rigs faultlessly and I think are more responsive than the keyers built into any of my rigs.  At high speed I used to make errors that I blamed on myself but I now think they were timing errors because the CPU in the radio was off servicing another request rather than servicing the keyer paddle. It also "sounds" better than the keyers built into the radios. 

You program the memories and interrogate the keyers using your paddle.  What could be more natural for a CW operator than talking to your keyer in the language we all love. And, you can program it to do anything you can imagine and anything you have ever heard on the air. The NorCal Keyer doesn't allow for programming speed changes within a memory but unless you are a devout contester you won't miss this feature. They all have ample keyer memory such that you would be hard pressed to run out of memory.

I can recommend these keyers to any CW operator - they meet my every expectation and I am highly pleased with my kWB5KHC operating portableeyers! I'm even more pleased that I built them, that they are personalized with my call and are unique (there is not another one that looks like it anywhere in the world, except for the other one I built which is a mirror image of the first <grin>).

I have no financial stake in Idiom Press or Jackson Harbor Press but I am a member of the new American QRP Clug but neither company nor the club compensated me for my endorsement.  This is an unsolicited recommendation for three great products that meets my personal requirements.

      OR        OR      

Idiom Press  --    Jackson Harbor Press -- American QRP Club

Click on the above pictures to go the appropriate website for more information about their keyer kits.