Hi Zach,
My condolences for your stolen SOTA gear. I hope you’ll be lucky to recover all or part of it, albeit this possibility sounds highly unlikely.
My recommendation is definitely for a dual lever paddle. It’s the most efficient in every sense. I started CW in 1985 with a stright key, soon I home built a single lever paddle and shortly later I purchased a dual lever paddle made by Hy-Mound.
The metal base was home-brewed and glued to the Hy-Mound paddle key.
I’ve never ever got back to any of the previously used single lever paddle or staright key. I’ve just used a straight key from very time to time and just for romantic, folklorical reasons.
For activating I only use a Palm Radio MP-817 dual lever paddle and this home made dual lever paddle key at the shack for my remote station.
It weights only 50 grams
and was made with pure junk box stuff. It works so well and gives me so much pleasure that I even like it better than the commercial Hy-Mound I still own and use with other rig, the one using my endfed antenna in the balcony.
73,
Guru
P.D. during my only visit to Dayton’s Hamvention in Ohio, USA, I purchased this spy straight key, which currently lives in my rucksack as a backup just in case my Palm Radio MP-817 fails one day during an activation and I still need/want to continue working CW:
