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Old July 20th 14, 11:48 AM posted to rec.radio.amateur.homebrew
gareth gareth is offline
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First recorded activity by RadioBanter: Sep 2012
Posts: 1,382
Default The Arc of Action

"vu2nan" wrote in message
...
gareth;821995 Wrote:
A straight Morse key has a fulcrum away from you, but your wrist
articulates in front of the key, in a mirror image of that of the key.
Therefore, your wrist is constrained to follow an unnatural arc
when keying.
Have there been any mechanical designs published so that the
keying arc is in the same sense as the wrist arc?
(cf. Watts' parallel motion, perhaps?)


How about keeping the key turned 180° (facing away from you)?!


That thought did occur to me in bed last night. The main difficulty would be
in needing a special-purpose table with an indentation to hold the Morse key
so that one's forearm remained flat on the table.

However, such an arrangement would solve the "glass arm" form of RSI because
one's wrist would not be turned up at an awkward angle to grasp the knob, so
that the point of contact of the thumb and finger would be level.

I took such an approach a couple of years ago when making my ersatz
vibroplex,
by having a downward right angle bend for the paddles, you keyed
horizontally.