states key people scott robbins products morse code keys website vibroplex co. inc. vibroplex is the brand of side to side mechanical semi automatic morse key first manufactured and sold in 1905 by the vibroplex company after its invention and patent 1 by horace greeley martin of new york city in 1904 . the original device became known as a bug most likely due to the original logo which showed an electrified bug . 2 the vibroplex company has been in business continuously for 109 years as of 2014 . amateur radio operator scott e. robbins also known by the call sign w4pa became the 8th owner of the vibroplex company on december 21 2009 . the company is located in knoxville tennessee . vibroplex original bug model the most common vibroplex models have a single lever with a flat thumbpiece or paddle on the left side and a fingerpiece or knob on the right side . when the knob is pressed from the right it makes a continuous contact suitable for sending dashes or dahs as most operators call them . when the paddle is pressed from the left a horizontal pendulum at the opposite end of the lever is set into motion intermittently closing a set of contacts sending a series of short pulses dits at a speed that is controlled by the position of the pendulum weight . a skilled operator can achieve sending speeds in excess of 40 words per minute with a bug . the vibroplex original bug key has been in continuous production for over 100 years with only minor cosmetic changes . numerous vibroplex keys are available to this day ; the company presently markets and sells 27 variations of morse code keys including the original bug iambic paddles the vibrokeyer an electronic variant of the original bug and traditional straight keys . references edit u.s. patent 767 303 1 john ceccherelli n2xe january 2003 vibroplex the company and its classic key qst external links edit vibroplex co. inc. the vibroplex collector s page flash animation made by ae4rv demonstrating the operation of a vibroplex scott e. robbins purchases vibroplex company arrl webpage december 7 2009 vibroplex mechanical bug key history this article related to amateur radio is a stub . you can help wikipedia by expanding it . v t e retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title vibroplex & oldid 737141626 categories amateur radio companiesamateur radio stubshidden categories all stub articles navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version in other projects wikimedia commons languages deutschfran ais edit links this page was last modified on 1 september 2016 at 00 38 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; additional terms may apply . by using this site you agree to the terms of use and privacy policy . wikipedia is a registered trademark of the wikimedia foundation inc. a non profit organization . privacy policy about wikipedia disclaimers contact wikipedia developers cookie statement mobile view