How to use a straight key without tiring your arm
To use a straight key without tiring your arm, support your forearm (resting it on the desk is the common way), hold the knob lightly, press with a small movement of the wrist, and let the spring lift the lever back up. Fatigue usually comes from one of four things: gripping too hard, pressing too hard, a key in the wrong place, or sending faster than your hand can stay relaxed at. Fix those and a straight key stays comfortable through long sessions.
What follows is general technique. Keys differ and hands differ, and the right setup is the one you can send on for half an hour without thinking about your arm.
Put the key in the right place
A lot of arm strain starts before you send a single dit.
Far enough back. A common setup puts the key back from the edge of the desk so most of your forearm rests on the surface. A forearm hanging off the edge has to hold itself up, and that effort ends up in your shoulder.
In line with your arm. Put the key straight in front of your sending forearm, not angled across your body. Your wrist should move straight up and down, not twist as it goes.
At a comfortable height. With your forearm resting, your hand should reach the knob without lifting the wrist high or bending it sharply down. If the key stands tall on its base, put something flat and firm under your forearm to bring it up to the right level.
Held still. A key that slides as you send makes you chase it, and chasing it tenses your arm. A heavy base, rubber feet or a non-slip mat cures most of it. How to adjust a straight key covers anchoring the key, and the two screws that decide how it feels under your hand.
Sit square to the desk with both feet on the floor and your sending shoulder dropped. If you notice that shoulder creeping up toward your ear as you send, that is tension, and it will reach your wrist soon.
Hold the knob, do not grip it
One common grip, and a long-standing one, puts the thumb against the side of the knob and the first and second fingers on top, slightly curved, with the other two fingers loosely curled. Some people rest three fingertips on top instead, and others find their own variation. Any of them works if the hand stays soft.
What matters more than exact finger placement:
- Your fingers stay on the knob. They ride down with it and back up with it. Lifting off and striking the key wastes movement and makes your timing jumpy.
- Your fingers keep their shape. They are the contact point, not the motor. Sending with finger flicks alone feels quick for a minute and tiring after ten.
- The grip is light enough to let go. You should be able to slide your hand off the knob at any moment without your fingers having to open first.
Move from the wrist and let the spring lift
A common way to send, and a comfortable one, is to make the movement mostly with the wrist, with the forearm resting and lending a little help and the fingers simply passing the motion on to the knob. Think of it as a small, loose up-and-down of the whole hand.
Two habits save the most effort.
Press only as far as the contacts. The circuit is either closed or open. Pushing harder once the contacts touch does nothing to the signal and is pure work for your arm. Feel where the contacts close and stop there.
Let the spring do the lifting. You do not pull the knob up between elements. You relax, and the spring brings the lever, and your fingers with it, back up. If the spring is too weak to do that briskly, add tension rather than lifting with your hand.
A dah is a press held three times as long as a dit, not a harder press. A dit is a short press, not a jab. Both use the same light pressure; only the length changes.
Keep the rhythm relaxed
Tension rises with hurry. The moment you send faster than your hand is comfortable at, your grip tightens, your strokes stiffen, and your timing gets worse along with your arm.
- Send a little below your limit. If your arm tightens at one speed, practice a step slower until the motion is loose, then creep back up.
- Hear letters, not strokes. Think of B as dah-di-di-dit, one sound, rather than four movements to count. Counted strokes are stiff strokes.
- Watch the long runs of dits. H,
...., S,..., and the figure 5,....., are where many arms tense, because the hand tries to rattle the dits out. Keep the movement small and even; speed comes from smallness, not force. - Take breaks. Short sessions with a pause to shake out your hand beat one long session pushed through stiffness.
Pain that stays after you stop sending is a reason to rest, not to push on, and if it lasts, a reason to see a doctor.
Why a death grip makes a bad fist
A tight grip hurts your sending as much as your arm. Tensed muscles are slow to let go, so the contacts stay closed a little longer than you mean and open a little late. Dits swell toward dahs, and the silence after each element shrinks. Letters start to run together, and the receiver hears AN, .- -., as P, .--.. A tired hand also starts to clip its dahs to get them over with, and the clear one-to-three difference between dit and dah begins to fade.
Among old telegraphers, the arm trouble that could follow years of hard keying was often called glass arm. You do not need years at a key to feel your arm tire, and the same relaxed habits help at any stage.
The relaxed hand is also the accurate one. A loose wrist lets the spring give a clean, quick release every time, and that is what gives a straight key fist its even, readable rhythm. Your fist in Morse code goes further into hearing and fixing it.
A five-minute warm-up
Before a session, this short sequence finds the tension before it finds you:
- Slow, even dits for a few seconds. Check that your fingers ride the knob and the spring does the lifting.
- Slow dahs, with the same pressure as the dits, just held longer.
- A,
.-, and N,-., back and forth, then D,-.., and U,..-. - A line of real text at a speed that feels easy. Notice where your shoulder or grip tightens, and go slower there.
- Shake out your hand, and start.
If you practice on a Mac keyboard rather than a real key, the motion is different but the habits are the same: a light touch, no extra pressure past the point where the key registers, and gaps you leave on purpose. Dot & Dash uses Space as a straight key and reads your keying at your own speed, learning the length of your dit as you go. In a lesson, after each letter you key, it draws each dit and dah against the length it should have been, so stretched dits and clipped dahs show up right away. Using your Mac keyboard as a Morse key has more on that setup.
Questions
Should my wrist rest on the desk while I send?
A common setup rests the forearm and keeps the wrist just clear of the desk, so it can move freely. A wrist pressed on the desk edge has to bend around it, which tires it faster.
How hard should I press a straight key?
Just hard enough to close the contacts. Anything past that adds effort without changing the signal at all.
Why does my arm ache after ten minutes of sending?
Usually from a tight grip, a key that is too stiff, a key placed so close to the desk edge that your forearm has no support, or sending faster than you are relaxed at. Check them in that order, and slow down while you fix them.
Should I send with my fingers or my wrist?
A common answer is mostly the wrist, with the fingers keeping their shape on the knob. Finger-only sending is quick for short bursts, but it tires sooner and tends to make the timing jumpy.