For those unfamiliar with Ham Radio, there are lots of fancy tools these days to make it easier for the radio operator. But enthusiasts still like to get back to basics, and one way to do this is to participate in Straight Key Night. This is when you pull out your traditional Morse code keyer and have a chat with others around the world. The most recent event was on New Year’s Eve.
The only drag is that it sometimes takes a while to find another Ham who’s listening, and this can mean repetitively keying the letters QC SKN for long periods of time (QC invites listeners to respond, and SKN is to inform them you’re participating in Straight Key Night). Sure, a programmable keyer will do this for you, but that is against the spirit of the event. [Mike Herr] found a grey area by mechanically interfacing an Arduino with a straight key.
http://youtu.be/Rn7Ky9Ib7ug Video by Mike Herr WA6ARA
You can see the straight key being pressed by a hobby servo in the image above. The servo is driven by the Arduino, which will transmit the series of letters automatically. As you can see in the video after the break, once [Mike] hears back from a fellow operator he switches to a huge wooden straight key for the rest of the conversation.