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In the early years of the 20th
Century, two Georgia boys, one a telegrapher turned inventor and the
other a telegrapher turned financier, teamed up to bring industrial
manufacturing to the little town of Norcross, Georgia. The inventor was
Horace G. Martin and the Wall Street wonder kid was Edward F. “Buck”
Buchanan.
As a result of their partnership, the world famous Vibroplex semi-automatic manual keyer was manufactured by Buchanan’s United Electrical Manufacturing Company in Norcross next to the railroad track and train depot where “Buck” had gotten his start as an orphan boy years before. Unfortunately, Buchanan’s financial empire was wiped out in the crash of 1908 and United Electrical Manufacturing closed its doors. Today the Norcross bugs are amongst the rarest of vintage Vibroplex keyers. |
This beautifully restored Norcross Vibroplex was graciously loaned by a collector expressly for the special event.
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Location:
Norcross Welcome Center, 167
Lawrenceville Street Norcross, GA 30071 Date: October 8, 2011 Time: 10:00 AM EDT – 4:00 PM EDT |
| On October 8, 2011
Vibroplex, at least a Norcross Vibroplex key will return to Historic
Norcross, Georgia, the one time home of Vibroplex and United Electrical
Manufacturing.
We will start at 10:00 AM EDT. Setup will start about 9:00 AM. We have reserved the Norcross Welcome Center for the day and hope to visit with many of our modern day telegraphers or CW operators. The event is sponsored in part by the North Georgia QRP club, http://www.NoGaQRP.org. Actually this is the QRP club's regular meeting day and they will move their meeting from Midtown Atlanta to Norcross for the day. Everyone is welcome to come out and visit! Since this celebration is a first, plans are a little flexible. Coffee, cold drinks, and other light refreshments will be served. We’ll have a couple antennas and rigs setup in the back yard and the ability to make contacts with the different Vibroplex keys that are on site. You are encouraged to bring your Vibroplex keys and show them off. For lunch, plans are to dine at the Norcross Station Café where we have requested the old telegrapher’s office as our dining area. The café is about 2 blocks from the Welcome Center. After lunch we’ll spend the afternoon sharing Vibroplex stories and operating. We have N4V reserved as the special event call and will generally operate around the QRP frequencies, both CW and SSB. The special event station will be active during the entire preceding week to give folks a chance to work the event and receive the way cool QSL card. More Vibroplex historical info can be found at here. Plenty of restaurants and hotels are nearby; just send a note if you have questions. Contact us with email at vibroplexreturns@gmail.com |
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QSL to N4TRB with a Self-Addressed Stamped Envelope (SASE) or via the bureau. Enclose a regular-size envelope for a standard-size QSL card or enclose a large envelope for the 8.5 x 11 inch certificate (and you will get the QSL card, too). |
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