Wow about Jonny Cash. Dad had a navy key from WWII. He was a radar officer on the cruiser Pensacola and was at Bikini (Pensacola was part of the blown up fleet). Unfortunately it was accidentally sold in a yard sale in my absence during one of our moves.
My Vietnam bug was identical to the one in the article (pictured below); it went in the same yard sale - I was "upset." Brother bought me another a few years ago. It is not the fully automatic one with both dit and dah automatic...only the dits and the speed can be regulated by the weights...easy to use once you get used to it. All the SF guys in VN used them.
The 109 could broadcast 2,000 miles but it put out 10-15 watts. During the final problem in Piscah Forest NC, in 1965 trying to communicate in the 80 meter band was just difficult...the hams would hear a faint signal with a strange call sign and come bombing in on top of us with 10,000 watts for a dx.
