Here it is, the new Begali Sculpture. The buying experience was relatively painless except for the cost, however, considering the quality of the key, it is a good deal.
So here are my thoughts on the key. You can see in the photo that there is a Brass Racer parked to the left of the Begali. The racer was and is a nice key. It has its issues with magnets that seem to be getting tired in its old age, but it works well. The racer was definitely not my preferred key BB (BEFORE BEGALI). The two main keys were the Bencher and Vibroplex iambic. The Bencher was a victim of key abuse as I left it on my sailboat for years. The chrome plating was not tough enough for the salty Med environment and so the key corroded quite a bit. However, there was some hope and that meant grinding off all the chrome and spraying the Bencher paddle black. It came out great and ended up as the main key (BB) connected to my Icom IC-7300.
As a homebrewer, there always has to be something on the workbench, and about a year ago I ordered a 140 watt amplifier kit from Communications Concepts. The amp is a AN-762 Motorola design.
The kit sat unopened for about 10 months due to other projects, however, it is now up and running. The amp was specifically purchased to give some extra horsepower to my Elecraft K2. Details on the amp and the relay keying circuits will be covered in my next blog.
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