SOTA, A Grilled Cheese Sandwich, & Morse Code: The AMECO K-4 Japanese Ball Bearings Straight Key

Look, let’s not be mistaken here. I just wanted a bite to eat when I stopped in the Freight House on Route 2 in Erving Massachusetts. I had seen the shop before, and it looked like a good place to get a quick meal. A bit of a country attraction for the leaf peepers and other ambling New England tourists. AA1F, Nellie (our doggie), and I were heading up Mount Toby in Sunderland MA for an afternoon activation of for Summits-On-The-Air. We like this hike especially in the winter, because we know we can easily follow the trail out in the dark. And when the sun sets at 4:15pm in the late fall, we can put on our headlamps and march back down the 2+ mile dirt gravel road. Yup, that is a bit of snow you see on the ground.

But, before I get ahead of myself here, the drive from our qth in Boston to the Mt. Toby trailhead takes a couple hours. And once you get to know me, you learn I subsist on pizza and poptarts. And coffee. Well, I had a poptart already, and coffee, but it was now time to hike a mountain. I was hungry by the time we got to western MA. When we drove past the Freight House, I was ready to stop and check it out this time. And, grilled cheese sandwiches are a lot like pizza, lets face it.

I couldn’t really tell from the outside, but the inside was a lunch counter and grill aligning the front wall of an antique store. Sure enough, grilled cheese was on the menu. As was a plain hamburger for AA1F. And a plain hamburger for Nellie (yup, spoiled pup!) I used the restroom and then had a look around the store. I am not really into antiques, truth be told. I think other people’s old stuff make me nervous. But then! Look at what I stumbled upon!

Those, now on my workbench back at the qth, are three AMECO K-4 straight keys! I bought them for $24 a piece. This company apparently was the American distributor of this Japanese product. According to their website, this key was in production from the 1950s until 2010. I believe that this model was made as a Japanese replica of the American World War 2 military straight key, the J-38. The AMECO model may also been marketed as the JJ-38. The claim to fame of this particular key is the use of ball bearings in the lever trunnion, which seems a bit gimmicky to me.

You can see the clearly etched “Japan” on the base of the key below.

So, I went ahead and took it apart. The intact key in the middle is for reference for this picture. The surrounding parts are the entire disassembled unit.

I used Brasso to clean the stripped down components. You can see the tiny BB like bearings in the right upper portion of the container below.

Here is a close up picture of the lever trunnions with the ball bearing (5 of them) in place in one of them, and spilled out in the other. The bearings are loose within the trunnions with nothing but the lever to hold them in place.

After cleaning the trunnions and bearrings, I applied a bit of Tri-Flow Superior bicycle lubricant to the apparatus.

I needed a straight key cable to attach to my Icom IC-705. I decided to build one out of a 3.5mm Stereo to dual-RCA audio speaker cable that I found at a local store.

I consulted the ICOM IC-705 manual to see what connections were necessary on the stereo TRS connector. The tip needed to be positive and the sleeve needed to be negative.

I was able to find a copy of the instruction manual for the AMECO K-4 as well. The positive binding post would be on the left of the key looking down on it, and the negative binding post is on the right.

Time to make my straight key cable!

First, I chopped off the RCA connectors.

There were two approximately 26 gauge individually insulated wires bundled together going to each RCA connector.

-insulated wires in each bundle had continuity with the sleeve of the TRS connector. The white wire was in continuity with the tip of the TRS connector. The red wire was in continuity with the sleeve.

This meant that I needed to keep the white wire as my positive (i.e. tip) connection, and fold its yellow partner wire out of the way. On the other bundle, I wanted to keep the yellow negative ground (i.e. sleeve) connection, and fold the red partner wire out of the way.

I used a several different layers of shrink tubing with a hot air gun to isolate the desired wires.

My finished cable came out like this. This wire is too fragile for my taste, and I plan on redesigning it once I aqcuire some bare stereo TRS connectors to work with.

Next I needed a base. I found an oval oak plaque, the type you drill a house number into, near the crown molding section of a big box store. I took some type and massaged straight beeswax into the wood.

I added furniture no-slip sticky pads to the base. Note that I put a bit more of the pad area toward the front of the key so it would not rock when used. It is perfectly stable when using, and does resist moving around.

So, here it is! The final AMECO K-4 Straight Key on its waxed oak base! I think it is a work of art!

So, our SOTA activation turned into an antique restoration project, a cw key history lesson, and a thrifty way to get a beautiful vintage straight key back on the air. What’s my point? Well, obviously to show you what I did with this key. But its also a reminder that there are many twists and turns on the road of life, doors open and shut, opportunity is lurking in every sandwich shop. Stop for one moment, and really see what is around you. What a magical world!

As always,

KM1NDY