USA Morse Key - ITT Mackay Marine 600212-713-001

[D.J.J. Ring, Jr.]

ITT Mackay Marine 600212-713-001

Standard ITT/Mackay Marine issue key for their SOLAS (Safety Of Life At Sea) radio installations during the 1970-1999 period.

This is a standard Nye Viking Morse key with a standard knob and standard nickle plating. That key was mounted inside a custom heavy steel box with snap on top lid which was held on by clips on the lid which held mating ball shaped tips which were atop pillars that were added to the Nye Viking key. Often the clips are broken, and this one is no exception as one of the sides of the clips has broken which makes the clip not hold the mating ball shaped tip which causes the cover to not be fixed in position and it moves around if touched. The box had a piece of non-skid foam rubber on the bottom which gave feel of the key a bit of a cushion when being used.

This was the standard key used in 1970-1999 for ship stations produced by ITT/Mackay. The radio station changed from the 1960s version of black panels to a more modern blue and silver and the radio equipment changed from being all vacuum tube to having transistorized receivers, including the battery powered “reserve receiver”, reserve transmitter was all transistorized with 40 watts modulated Morse type A2 output on 410-500 kHz.

This key came with a very heavy coiled cable to connect to the transmitter key jacks located on the transmitter control panel at the back of the desktop. The color of the box was “Merchant Marine Blue”.

These keys are quite rare and are a wonderful piece to remember USA ships and radio officers with.

73

DR

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

David J. Ring, Jr., N1EA

SOWP, VWOA, OOTC, FISTS, CW-Ops, CFO, A1-OP, ex-FOC 1271 ARRL-LM

Chat Skype: djringjr MSN: djringjr@msn.com AIM: N1EA icq: 27380609

Radio-Officers Google Group -- Marine Morse Historic Recordings Page

[Sandy]

David,

 

Is that the key Mackay was supplying with a round headed european type knob instead of the flat J-38 type?  I have a Mackay key that had a covered mechanism, insulated arm and knob handle with a very good feel.  Mine has “Westclox”   etched on it inside and a 1/4” steel base plate with a foam mat glued to bottom.  Is this the one you have?

 

Out of the keys I have, I like a modern Russian one the best and the Marconi 365 key as well.  Marconi key is huge and noisy but is a pleasure to send with.

 

How have you been?

 

73,

 

Sandy W5TVW

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[D.J.J. Ring, Jr.]

Alas, I have no digital camera.  It is a blue box with a Nye Viking nickel plated standard USA key in it.  The Nye Viking key is the company that bought the EF Johnson keys around 1969.  Same molds same keys, but Nye Viking never did make the semi-automatic EF Johnson keys - sad to say.

I've heard about the Westclock key, but I have never heard of the other one you mention, the modern Russian key - any photos of either Sandy?

I'll reply about personal matters off the list if you don't mind!

73

David J. Ring, Jr., N1EA
SOWP, VWOA, OOTC, FISTS, CW-Ops, CFO, A1-OP, ex-FOC 1271 ARRL-LM

Chat Skype: djringjr MSN: djringjr@msn.com AIM: N1EA icq: 27380609

Radio-Officers Google Group -- Marine Morse Historic Recordings Page

[Stan Barr]

On 07/04/12 06:40, D.J.J. Ring, Jr. wrote:

> I've heard about the Westclock key, but I have never heard of the other
> one you mention,

Westclox were a Scottish clock maker - famous for their "Big Ben" alarm
clock - what were they doing selling keys?

the modern Russian key - any photos of either Sandy?

Is that the one with the hinged lid and suppression components
underneath? Got a couple of them, quite nice.

--
Cheers and 73,
Stan Barr G0CLV GQRP-3369 FISTS-667 g0...@dsl.pipex.com

"Never leave well enough alone." - Raymond Loewy

[Spud Roscoe]

Hi Dave:

 

 

This is the E. F. Johnson key number 114-320 and when Nye Viking took it over they used the same number. This key came off HMCS BONAVENTURE with call sign CGLE. Each position at VCS had the Nye Viking 114-320. We used a lot of them here in Canada. Does yours look like this? If so why the difference in the number?

 

Spud VE1BC

 

 

 

----- Original Message -----

From: D.J.J. Ring, Jr.

To: Radio Officers &c

Sent: Friday, April 06, 2012 9:33 PM

Subject: [Radio Officers, &c] USA Morse Key - ITT Mackay Marine 600212-713-001

[Stan Barr]

On 07/04/12 08:42, Stan Barr wrote:
> On 07/04/12 06:40, D.J.J. Ring, Jr. wrote:
>
>> I've heard about the Westclock key, but I have never heard of the other
>> one you mention,
>
> Westclox were a Scottish clock maker - famous for their "Big Ben" alarm
> clock - what were they doing selling keys?

Answered my own query :-)
It appears Westclox manufactured WT 8 AMP keys for the 18 and 19 sets as
part of their war work during WW2. The Canadian keys appear to use the
bakelite base from a 8 AMP with a different mechanism.

I learned morse on the (in)famous 8 AMP key, occasionally without
sidetone - a skill I still have :-)

[D.J.J. Ring, Jr.]

It was the oval base (standard) model - your photo is of the heavy-duty model with the square lever for extra pounding ability :-)

The one in the ITT/Mackay blue box was oval and all nickel plated like this one I found using google image search and did not have the massive lever, just the wee bit of a lever for non-lumberjacks and your weaker neighbors  to the south.

Actually, all kidding aside, I like the large square lever it seems to give the key a better feel and I love the navy knob - ours just had the regular knob.

You Canadians do things top shelf, aye?.

DR

[Spud Roscoe]

OK QSL thanks. Well I reckon we are pretty good at some things but damn poor at operating merchant ships - the poorest found actually.

 

73

Spud

 

 

----- Original Message -----

From: D.J.J. Ring, Jr.

[D.J.J. Ring, Jr.]

I don't think that's true at all - three of the very best radio officers I've ever met:  SG Roscoe, Paul DuMesnil, David Vail, are all Canadian Merchant ship Radio Officers.

If you read a detraction from things Canadian in my remarks, none was meant.  I may joke with my friends, but I dearly love them.  I could write a book about what Canada did right with Merchant Marine communications.  Any place along the coast you could call for help on 500 kHz and be heard and not only that hear an answer - from Alert, to Hudson Bay, to anyplace on the St. Laurence Riverway.

I don't think there is another nation in the World that can say that.  I say it and I take it as a mark of greatness.

I guess the UK would come close but I don't know if the reception on the Irish Sea was complete or not, or the Islands to the NW of the mainland.  Other than that they covered 500 kHz excellently.  But they're a small place compared to the vast reaches of Canada.

73
DR

[Spud Roscoe]

Right. You're talking Coast Stations and I am talking ships. I knew you were joking!

 

I have deleted the other three paragraphs I had here on the mess the Canadian merchant fleet has been over the years.

 

Enough!

 

Spud VE1BC

[Sandy]

Stan ( and group),

The Russian keys are as you described. I bought two of them from a Russian
fellow on e-bay. They have back contacts as well if you need those for a
muting bus. The only "minus" of them is: eventually, I want to get apiece
of thick brass (1/4") and make bases the same size as the aluminium mounting
plate and screw the base on with countersunk head screws that will fit the
mounting holes. If I have to use a slightly larger screw, I have
countersinks that will handle that job.

The Westclox key wasn't around until we had a big job installing new
replacement Mackay MRU-35A HF racks on the older Lykes Steamship vessels to
replace the older CW and AM HF transmitters (2013's I think they were.
Don't remember the whole console designation.) Anyway, that key came with
the MRU-35 refit package. We did not replace the MRU-33 sets with the
bandswitched crystal oscillator modules (one for each band) but eventually
there was an interface built (engineer came to our shop in New Orleans as we
had the ONLY working MRU-33 in captivity!....and designed a (s.i.c.)
"interface unit" so the same synthesizer driver that was used in the MRU-35
could be used as an exciter for the old MRU-33's. If you never sailed with
an MRU-33, it had bandswitched taps and Input and output tuning capacitors
for EACH band! (4-22mhz.) This way the R/O supposedly didn't have to tune
up anything when switching from band to band manually. They ran originally
two PL175A's in parallel (later 4-400C's). One of the old time technicians
in our shop told the engineer, when he had the design complete, that it
would never work properly controlling the drive level "as advertised" to
which he gave the tech. a "jaundiced eye" look! This is why I called it a
s.i.c. "interface unit"! Fortunately we didn't have many of those! The
MRU-35A was a good unit if you tuned it properly and handled it with care.
The bandswitch was rather marginal in my opinion and the low pass filter
unit between the PA output and the RF-601 antenna tuner was sort of a
cobbled up "abortion" devised to make it pass the newer and very tight FCC
specs on harmonics! Had there been a "second generation" of this
transmitter, there would have been some beefier bandswitches needed and a
better low pass filter design needed. I installed perhaps half of the
MRU-35A refits on the old Lykes fleet. My big reservation was the use of
the top hat vertical antennas for the radiators. They worked, but the
Harris RF-601 autotuner units were sort of "iffy" on a couple of bands due
to "out of range" reactance values for a couple of the HF bands.

Anyway, I will send photos of the Russian key and the Westclox key soon.
Will try to take the photos in next few days.

73 to all,

Sandy Blaize W5TVW
ex- Mackay Depot New Orleans.

-----Original Message-----
From: Stan Barr
Sent: Saturday, April 07, 2012 2:42 AM
To: radio-o...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [Radio Officers, &c] USA Morse Key - ITT Mackay Marine
600212-713-001

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[John]

Sandy;
I think when you mentioned MRU-33 you really meant the MRU-27 which had
separate, xtal controlled exciters for each band. No 2mhz originally. The
MRU-33 was manufactured by TMC and was fitted on the SL7 types of Sealand
ships, (also a few tankers).

As for the Mackay keys, I have one with the blue clip on key cover and the
key is marked "Speedx".

US ships always had key covers, the FCC would measure voltage across open
key and if it was 110v, a cover was required. The actual keying voltage,
through dropping R was higher than the relay rating to insure better keying.

JJ Miller 32 years with Mackay R & T/ITT Mackay

[Sandy]

John,

You are right! It's been quite a few years ago and I guess some of the
numbers are scrambled in my memory! THAT was one of the things I liked
about Marconi Marine gear, they all had unique names! "Oceanspan"
transmitter, "Crusader" transmitter, "Atalanta" receiver, "Apollo" receiver,
etc. One you never forgot was their old "Radiolocator Mk IV radar! The
best they had and probably one of the most difficult to work on was the
"Hermes" radar. All that stuff is probably scrap by now. I still have my
Marconi 365 straight keyI scrounged one day when a sparks had a few spares
and asked if I wanted one!

Sadly, those days are gone forever......like arc and spark
transmitters.....rapidly fading into the past. How many "newbies" know who
Edwin Armstrong was, or "General" David Sarnoff was, or that the tradename
"Motorola" was originally the "Galvin Radio Corp."?

73,

Sandy W5TVW

Version: 2012.0.1913 / Virus Database: 2411/4924 - Release Date: 04/09/12

[Richard Brunner]

I have a burning question: What happened to all that nice equipment that
came off the ships? There is very little around.

Richard, AA1P

[Peter VK4QC]

Richard,

There's some here which is now a part of someone's ham shack. When I bought the Atalanta rx pictured, the guy had a room full of Marconi ships gear all in working order.

https://picasaweb.google.com/117905591606027101770/April102012?authkey=Gv1sRgCLrPgb_P5f6mVQ#

73, Peter VK4QC

[Sandy]

All the gear aboard the Lykes ships that were being decommissioned, went to
the ship breakers in Bengladeshi/Indian ship wrecking yards. One of the
port engineers I knew talked about BIG piles of things the same like
winches, toilets, sinks, lockers, etc., etc. piled up mostly outside in
fields. He said the radio and electronic gear all went to a warehouse and
stuff stacked up in tall piles by forklift. Where it went he didn't know.
He was on the final run of some of the ships that went over there. T some
point the ships were under full power and then beached, all the items inside
were dismantled and removed then the ship was cut in large sections and
smaller pieces of plating cut out and hauled off, a lot of it by human hand
labor once the pieces were small enough for one to 4 men to carry it. He
stated there was an incredible amount of people there manually doing most of
the work.

A large number of ships were "mothballed" in the Port Arthur area at one
time, but I don't know if any are still there or if they were all sailed on
their final voyage to the ship breakers in the far East.

This is strictly the Lykes Lines cargo ships I am referring to. Can't tell
you anything about Delta Lines, Waterman Steamship, etc.

73

Sandy W5TVW

Richard, AA1P

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[Sandy]

Peter

 

My goodness!  Very nice picture of the old Atalanta.  Remember them well!  The one of the Salvor and new “autokey” etc. units are some that appeared after I left Marconi’s in the early 70’s.  The “Challenger” transmitter a later replacement for the old “Crusader” no doubt.  What sort of valves were used in it for the PA stage or was it solid state?  There was a big transmitter of vintage between the “Crusader” and “Challenger”, but I can’t recall it now.  Before the “Crusader” there was the “Globespan”, smaller and very common “Oceanspan”, and even smaller yet “Seaspan” commonly called the “Puddlespan” by the Sparkies.  For a long time in New Orleans, I worked on a lot of “Bank Lines” ships passing thru going to Australia and every 4th or 5th one going to “Kiwi” as they used to say.  Mostly British officers and Bangladeshi or Pakistani crews.  Most of them had Oceanspans and Atalantas.  Some had older “Mercury” and “Electra” receivers.  One very unique piece of gear was (I think) the “Seaguard” autoalarm receiver which had the phonic motor you started by hand!  Radar is most instances was the old Radiolocator MK IV.

 

Have any more links to Marconi gear photos?  I went to a month long update school in Chelmsford, Essex in the late 70’s as I vaguely remember.  I was working for an American outfit called KAAR Electronics.  At the time it had been bought by Canadian Marconi out of Montreal, as using the Marconi name was forbidden in the USA due to arrangements made in the past between MIMCO and RCA/RMCA when David Sarnoff was just a radio operator. 

 

For those who might be interested, there is a very comprehensive book titled: “Empire of  the Air” which covers the “adventures” of such famous radio “greats” as Edwin Armstrong, Lee deForest, and David Sarnoff being covered with quite a bit of detail.  Very interesting read!

 

73,

 

Sandy W5TVW

 

From: Peter VK4QC

Sent: Tuesday, April 10, 2012 2:30 AM

To: radio-o...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: [Radio Officers, &c] Re: Ship Radio Equipment

Richard,

 

There's some here which is now a part of someone's ham shack. When I bought the Atalanta rx pictured, the guy had a room full of Marconi ships gear all in working order.

 

://picasaweb.google.com/117905591606027101770/April102012?authkey=Gv1sRhttpsgCLrPgb_P5f6mVQ#

 

73, Peter VK4QC

On Tue, Apr 10, 2012 at 5:11 PM, Richard Brunner <brunn...@comcast.net> wrote:

I have a burning question: What happened to all that nice equipment that
came off the ships?  There is very little around.

Richard, AA1P

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[Hans van den Toorn]

Hello Richard,

Service engineers in Rotterdam told me that the major part of the ''good stuff'' ended up in the trashcontainer to be scrapped.

This had to do with customs regulations, import duties and taxes to be paid when the gear would have been sold to shore based companies.

Ships of the Dutch fleet mainly carried very modern  radioequipment made by Scandinavian companies like SP Radio, Skanti, Elektromekano, Thrane & Thrane etc., so it was quite a waste of very nice gear.

73

Hans/PA3ERE

[R/O David Ring - N1EA]

The pictures of this type of key are no longer on the Internet, so here are two of the key that I received from my dear friend, Tom Chirhart, K4NCG ex USN (NBA Balboa, Canal Zone) and USCG RMC, NMG, NMA, NMR, etc.

That's why it's so important to upload information not just links to this list!

ITT Mackay Marine 600212-713-001

Standard ITT/Mackay Marine issue key for their SOLAS (Safety Of Life At Sea) radio installations during the 1970-1999 period.

This is a standard Nye Viking Morse key with a standard knob and standard nickle plating. That key was mounted inside a custom heavy steel box with snap on top lid which was held on by clips on the lid which held mating ball shaped tips which were atop pillars that were added to the Nye Viking key. Often the clips are broken, and this one is no exception as one of the sides of the clips has broken which makes the clip not hold the mating ball shaped tip which causes the cover to not be fixed in position and it moves around if touched. The box had a piece of non-skid foam rubber on the bottom which gave feel of the key a bit of a cushion when being used.

This was the standard key used in 1970-1999 for ship stations produced by ITT/Mackay. The radio station changed from the 1960s version of black panels to a more modern blue and silver and the radio equipment changed from being all vacuum tube to having transistorized receivers, including the battery powered “reserve receiver”, reserve transmitter was all transistorized with 40 watts modulated Morse type A2 output on 410-500 kHz.

This key came with a very heavy coiled cable to connect to the transmitter key jacks located on the transmitter control panel at the back of the desktop. The color of the box was “Merchant Marine Blue”.

These keys are quite rare and are a wonderful piece to remember USA ships and radio officers with

73

DR 

[Steve Morris]

Not to be confused with THIS 'NYE Viking Master Key' - 330-001 (no longer in production & hard to find)

I bought this key, brand-new, in 1988 & used it exclusively, 8 hours per-day, 5 days per-week @ WLO Marine Radio for 7 years (1989-95) & now for over 26 years daily as an amateur operator.

It has NEVER been taken apart & still performs flawlessly as smooth-as-silk. 

Steve / W5BIB

ex: WLO Morse Operator

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[Meir Ben-Dror WF2U]

I also have an ITT Mackay key, with the military U-229/U plug, which is used on the ITT Mackay MSR-8000 transceiver. The sticker on the key has the NSN stock number.

The attached photo is my MSR-8000 with the key plugged in.

73, Meir WF2U

Landrum, SC

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[D.J.J. Ring, Jr.]

How is the ITT Mackay MSR-8000 transceiver? I was really hoping they'd stay profitable and make great equipment. I feel really good they had a key for that radio!

73

David, N1EA 

[D.J.J. Ring, Jr.]

Steve, 

That key would have covered all the requirements of the National Electric Code and kept the 200 volts out of reach and been a much better key to use. Those keys have an excellent feel and they don't tip over!

73

David

N1EA 

[Meir Ben-Dror WF2U]

It's an excellent performer, very pleasant to listen to it. I got it with the final transistors blown in it. The transistors are obsolete and hard to find. I got the email address of the former ITT Mackay service manager and contacted him for information on parts.

He was very helpful, he is a ham and turns out that he has PA modules and boards for these radios, all used, but serviced and tested. He even calls me once in a while to follow up on the status on my ITT Mackay gear. I got from him 2 PA modules, one for spare, and replaced the bad one, which I'll fix when I find the transistors at the right price. The MSR-5050 receiver which I also have and love, has the same synthesizer and receiver boards as the MSR-8000 transceiver.

73, Meir WF2U

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[D.J.J. Ring, Jr.]

I have a ITT/MACKAY 3031 receiver with the red LED display and rotary encoder.

I talked to a man from New York who took apart a 3020 receiver and fixed the I.F. "blow by" that happens when the receiver used wide I.F. filters for broadcast reception.

I'd like to contribute this receiver to someone but I recently found out that it's difficult to find a museum to take things.

I've been trying to find a museum to take the Chief Engineer of RCA's "Radio Central" in Long Island, Bob McGraw, W2LYH's hand crafted and self designed radio station.  Triple Conversion receiver, full break in, sequentially keyed 300 watt output transmitter.  No one wants it!  See photos attached.

https://www.robkalmeijer.nl/techniek/electronica/radiotechniek/hambladen/qst/1960/01/page20/index.html

73

DR

N1EA 

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