In article , Mike Coslo
writes:

I remember loading a ham friend's Viking Ranger (60 to 80W) into a 75
ohm dipole without a balun, and then squeezing the pickle and being
introduced to a rather nasty fellow called R.F. Burns. :-( It's not
nice to have a coax that radiates!

Yoiks! s there a translation issue here? Hopefully the old pickle is
okay after that abuse! ;^)

Mike, the etymology of "pickle" in this case comes from the handheld
thumb-operated push-button switch sometimes used to release
bombs and other nasty things in WW2 military equipment. It was
about the size of an unsliced pickle. [or cucumber, but cucumber has
too many syllables to be comfortable as jargon]

E.F.Johnson used a similar pickle-sized PTT microphone on their
"Viking" radios, including a short-lived CB transceiver. I would
imagine the cross-over of WW2 jargon to apply there in a dozen years'
span from the end of WW2 although no one I know has used that term.