Bencher By 1 Review

The bencher by 1 iambic paddle is just one in a series are dual lever iambic paddles.

Bencher by 1 review.

I got a bencher by 2 and a few years later traded it for a st 1. Very smooth built like a tank and heavy. States on the old ameco straight key and used it for a few late night ragchews it had become. A few yrs after the trade i saw in qst a mod to make a dual paddle into a single with a simple piece of plastic.

I bought one of these to replace a bencher by 1 i bought in 1980. Bnr by 1 a couple of quick adjustments and it was good to go. As a long time user of the by 1 bencher paddles think 32 years i ve always wanted to try a higher end key. Like my previous bencher by 1 paddle some of the holes weren t drilled fully and the threads not cut all the way down making assembly screws jam in place before they were fully tight.

And since you ll probably own one someday anyway you might as well buy one right off the bat and save the suspense. I picked this up in huntsville at the hamfest. One of the things i dislike about the by 1 series is their tendency to fly apart under vigorous keying. Self adjusting needle bearings and gold plated solid silver contacts.

I learned cw on a set of borrowed bencher by 1 iambic paddles. So far i m very happy with the performance but i ve yet to key a set of begali paddles but the bencher is also less expensive. I prefer the st 1 single lever a lot. Works good for us qrs operators a whole lot better then the dual paddle.

The iambic bencher by 1 doesn t have this design problem and a little bit of unflatness doesn t bother it. The heavy steel bases and and non skid feet keep it in place while operating. But for a first paddle you d have to look long and hard to find a better key to start out with. I am not a great cw person yet.

Some ops love them some ops don t. Brought it home hooked it up and realized just how much i liked it. The rubber feet were loose because of this making the key dance around the table and rock diagonally in use. Tony offers different oto spacing down to 1 2 which i found to be about perfect.

Having knocked out more than half the u s. I do recommend that you purchase the universal hookup kit it makes things so easy to get the by 1 connected to your radio and up and running. Ultimately i had to give those paddles back to their owner and i ve been paddle less ever since. It features adjustable contact spacing and tension.

The by 1 is a well rounded key. The by 1 was damaged in a recent move so it was time to shop for something a little more modern.