Shortly before Christmas I bought a Vibroplex bug. Since then I’ve been practicing and trying to get better at using it and understanding how a bug works before I feel comfortable enough to take it out portable with me.
Portable? Yes, because I don’t have a shack at home and operate 100% portable (unless I’m chasing @EI4JY SOTA on VHF/UHF with my windowsill cake tin setup!).
Anyways, I wanted to find out what options I had to transport a bug safely while out portable. I am planning to take it on a SOTA or two just for something different, but as bug afficionados may know, bugs are not exactly ‘light’ and are sensitive to knocks and tumbles.
Anyways, if you do want to lug a bug out with you, I found a decent, reasonably priced little case that might be of interest made by Italian company Perel.
Every gram matters with SOTA, I get it. But for folks that want to do something different, I put a little piece together here which you can take a look at if you wish to, or not:
Here’s the Perel case anyway if you just want snaps:
The 3D printed arm I got from Printables. I had to scale it to 105% in Tinkercad to make it fit my bug. It fits perfectly. YMMV.
Here is the model. I downloaded the STL, scaled it in Tinkercad then exported to STL and imported to Bambu Maker and printed it face down vertical, larger end facing the plate, on fine print settings.
My friend got one and has restored it to its natural beauty. I think he’s struggling to make it sing or cry. I have a theory that bug users struggle to master twin paddles or vice versa. I think the skills compete for the same part of brain.
I understand that entirely! It’s the dah side that catches me out. Probably because I 99.9% use a paddle.
Same when I switch to a straight key. A bit of Ben’s Best Bent Wire though and all is well again!
Slowing the bug down to your paddle speed is what helped me get a bit better with it. Default speed range on a bug is way too fast for me. It is equal parts frustrating and rewarding to use, and perhaps a niche in CW operating in 2026 but hopefully it can be kept alive so it doesn’t die off altogether.
I find the history around bugs, and CW in general, utterly fascinating. Digging in to CW history is what sparked my curiosity to get a bug. Can’t wait to make a QSO with it now, perhaps this weekend?
The most fragile part is the point where the lever/spring and pendulum arm are joined with those two tiny rivets. A sudden shock in the vertical direction makes the pendulum and the big weight try to move vertically relative to the lever and the rivets fail because they not designed for vertical loads.
The transport advice I’ve seen recommends removing the lever/pendulum assembly by slackening off the pivots and packing it separately.
For portable use you could try removing the pendulum weight and then supporting the pendulum arm in the vertical plane, perhaps with a slotted piece of dense foam.
I researched this subject because I have a WW2 Lionel Bug.
For me this is true. I need a few days to go from paddles to sending with my bug. Later on, I need a few days to get from the bug back to twin paddles.
But this is not true for all. I have witnessed DJ/DL ops at the Friedrichshafen rally moving seamlessly between paddles and bug during the course of a single over …
I don’t doubt that with determination & frequent practice that gaining good proficiency in the second method after years of the former is possible but is probably more effort (undoing unconscious muscle memory) than going from a straight key to twin paddles, which I found easy. It probably helped that I switched from my dominant hand (for the SK) to the non-dominant hand (for the paddles).
Nice case! Nice bug! I have only used Vibroplex keys for 69 years, and am so used to them, I do have a hard time with the dual paddle keyer paddles sometimes. I have a couple of those (non-vibroplex). When I was a ;novice class licensee in 1957 I borrowed a bug from a friend for a couple weeks when he went on vacation. That sealed the deal, I had to have one. Sending with a hand key was no longer iinteresting. But they were soooo expensive at the time (Around $29) that I found a used one for $10. I still have it. Don’t use it often but I do use the single lever Vibroplexes most of the time. One of those wouldn’t be too hard to take hiking, they’re not especially delicate.
I do own a Vibroplex bug, and I use it with my right hand, and I can swiftly switch to SK or paddle. I learned to use a cootie (sideswiper) with my left hand, because it drove me nuts when using a cootie righthanded, I couldn’t send with a paddle anymore … very strange.
Now, I’m not mad enough to drag a bug up to a summit, I would prefer my super light “Matchbox Cootie”, seen in this video
It takes some time to master the cootie, but once you get the hang of it, it’s a dream!
Yes, a version of the Vibroplex would need to be designed like the famous series of marine chronometers invented and built by clockmaker John Harrison which avoided using a pendulum and won the British Admiralty challenge in the 1760s and solved the infamous ‘longitude problem’.
[The H4 version lost only a few seconds during a gruelling sea trial from England to Jamaica in 1761]
If you’re already hauling the CW anvil, I suppose you can also bring a tripod with adjustable legs, some way to support the bug on it (fit the Vibroplex base with a screw thread?), and a bubble level
I got into Bugs about a year ago, and now am pretty much 100% bug key at home…i found an important learning tool is to measure your dit/dah ratio regularly.
I recently purchased a Vibroplex Blue Lightning with the specific purpose of portable operating…the blue lightning is a more compact bug key but certainly not intended for /P.
One thing i’ve noticed is that bugs are such visually interesting devices that i have unintentionally started building a collection.
I can usually tell when someone is using a semiautomatic bug or a sideswiper (cootie). They both seem to have a distinctive fist. Can an experienced user send perfectly timed Morse like is possible with twin paddles?
Good luck using a mechanical bug on hills. They operate best on very level ground. Moving it even small amount during an activation may alter its performance.
Well, at least it’s hard to misplace. My Palm Pico paddles fell down between the rocks in a summit cairn. Fortunately it was still attached to the cable so I was able to retrieve it. Miniaturisation has its drawbacks.
That’s part of the reason I chose the lime green Palm Pico - aside from the fact that the green looks super groovy! Have no need for another Pico but the new orange colour looks mega.
Thanks! I got luck of the draw that the one that was sent was a nice silver colour. I think the others available are red and black. I wish that the Bug Buddy was just a smidge wider where the contact post holes are as it would also fit my Lancaster bathtub key. It’s about 0.5cm to short on one side.
I try to avoid having any of my radio kit in green as they are harder to find if dropped in the grass.
Since the cairn incident I’ve refined my on-summit setup and stowing procedures so that small items like paddles, earbuds, pencils, etc are some of the last to be removed from my rucksack and first to be put back.
