My Vibroplex Iambic Standard paddles were irritating me to no end by making a bunch of clinking and clanging when using them. There is a center post between the paddles at the contact end that the paddle arms come back to (via spring tension) when you let go of either of the paddles. The paddle arms are metal and the post is metal so naturally there is going to be some noise if the two come into contact with any amount of force. This may not affect others the same way it does me, but these extra sounds coming from the paddles coming back to rest at their neutral positions was audibly causing me issues. My brain was hearing a sidetone when a paddle made its contact and then almost immediately after that, the sound of the paddle arm making contact with the center post. So for a simple E character, I’m hearing two sounds instead of a single dit. Like I said, it was causing me trouble. I don’t have this problem on my Begali Simplex (phenomenal piece of hardware!) at all and with all the other cheaper paddles I have experience this issue in varying amounts. The Vibroplex Iambic Standard takes the cake though in being the noisiest of them all.
I fixed this issue, or at least mitigated it as much as I could without affecting the usability of the paddles or throwing paddles spacing and such out whack by adding a simple, small piece of masking tape around the center post between the back ends of the paddle arms. This effectively mutes the “return ding” sound of the paddles returning to rest at neutral position. Now, when I send a dit, I hear a dit and nothing more. I noticed that I was sending more accurately after making this minor adjustment. Perhaps the “fix” is not earth-shattering, but it has made a world of difference for me (at least with these paddles).
73,
Matthew, K2MAS
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