Bamatech TP-III & Modern Morse Nameless

As I’ve progressed down my portable operating journey, my portable operating has become more and more CW centric, which has put a certain focus on finding portable paddles I like.

Two recent acquisitions have been the Bamatech TP-III and the Modern Morse Nameless paddles. Both have sterling reputations amongst the POTA CW activator set.

Bamatech TP-III

The TP-III is a great key, with nice crisp action and easily adjusted settings for tension and contact gap that are independent for dit and dah paddles.

The TP-III has neodymium magnets embedded in the bottom, so that it clings like a magnetic limpet to any ferrous surface solidly, tightly enough that it doesn’t slip around when you’re keying.

The body dimensions are not bad for hand holding but the shape isn’t particularly ergonomic for working that way.

Tufteln sell a very nice magnetic cover for the key, which I have and use and find to be excellent for protecting the key when it’s just in one of my radio kits subject to the usual stresses of getting carted around.

My single complaint with the TP-III is that the fingerpieces are basically rubber caps that have been slipped over the end of the paddle arm. The result is that I don’t much like the feel of the rubber bits and the fingerpieces are a little small for my taste. This is absolutely a personal preference - many people own and use the TP-III and find the fingerpieces suit them nicely.

I paid US $193.73 for my TP-III including shipping.

Modern Morse Nameless

I bought the Modern Morse Nameless paddles looking to find a compact, robust key for field use that had the same delightfully crisp action of the TP-III but have fingerpieces more to my liking.

The Nameless fits that bill very nicely indeed. Very slightly larger than the TP-III, and like the TP-III the action is delightfully crisp. In a ‘feel’ shootout between the TP-III and the Nameless, I would declare the Nameless the winner but only by a razor thing margin.

One nice thing about the Nameless paddles is that the shape is quite ergonomic if you are one of the ops who likes to hold the paddles in your non-dominant hand, key with your dominant hand, and presumably log your contacts with your prehensile tail or some other wizardry.

The only flaw I see in the Nameless is that magnets in the bottom are just a wee bit recessed, with the result that the key will shift around on a jewelwers block while you’re keying. My solution has been to put a patch cut from a nitrile glove between the paddle and the block, which works really well.

I paid $234 for my Modern Morse Nameless paddles, including shipping.