I've been making adjustments to my Stenura Protege stenograph for several months now. I have adjusted the keystroke tension, the depth of the keystroke, and even adjusted the key contacts. I used the instructions given in the owner's manual that came with my stenograph for all of these adjustments ~ even though I knew that other techniques were available, I remained true to the owner's manual.
I was doing some speedbuilding exercises yesterday and it felt like the depth of my keystroke was still slowing me down as I tried to type faster. It reminded me of the difference between typing on a manual typewriter and an electric typewriter. My mother had an old typewriter and I had an IBM Selectric. (Anyone out there old enough to remember those?) I tried to type on her old typewriter, but I couldn't gather any significant speed because I had to press down each key about an inch before the letter hit the ribbon to print on the paper. After that experience, I thanked God for my IBM Selectric! What a joy it was to press a key down only a quarter of an inch to get the letter you wanted.
So the time had come to break free of my owner's manual and, once again, adjust the depth of the keystroke. I wanted to make them as shallow as possible to eliminate the time wasted pressing long, deep keystrokes. Jenni over at Court Reporter Bound sent me a link from Cheap and Sleazy's website a while back on how to use a credit card to shim the depth of my keystrokes and I thought I'd give it a try. It didn't take me very long to complete this task. The instructions are easy to follow and can be found at this link:
Adjusting Depth of Keystroke
Here's a picture of my stenograph showing where I placed the shim (credit card):
I was doing some speedbuilding exercises yesterday and it felt like the depth of my keystroke was still slowing me down as I tried to type faster. It reminded me of the difference between typing on a manual typewriter and an electric typewriter. My mother had an old typewriter and I had an IBM Selectric. (Anyone out there old enough to remember those?) I tried to type on her old typewriter, but I couldn't gather any significant speed because I had to press down each key about an inch before the letter hit the ribbon to print on the paper. After that experience, I thanked God for my IBM Selectric! What a joy it was to press a key down only a quarter of an inch to get the letter you wanted.
So the time had come to break free of my owner's manual and, once again, adjust the depth of the keystroke. I wanted to make them as shallow as possible to eliminate the time wasted pressing long, deep keystrokes. Jenni over at Court Reporter Bound sent me a link from Cheap and Sleazy's website a while back on how to use a credit card to shim the depth of my keystrokes and I thought I'd give it a try. It didn't take me very long to complete this task. The instructions are easy to follow and can be found at this link:
Adjusting Depth of Keystroke
Here's a picture of my stenograph showing where I placed the shim (credit card):
Click image for larger pictureThe instructions are courtesy of Kathryn A. "Stenoray" Thomas, another fabulous court reporter you may want to follow on on Twitter at Stenoray.Today's practice session was a lot of fun. And I absolutely love the way my stenograph writes. My hands didn't tire as quickly as they normally do and I was able to practice a lot longer than usual!
Thanks for the shoutout! I'm very glad the shorter stroke is helping you. The actual physical stroke depth makes a BIG impact on not just speedbuilding, but also how hard one's hands have to work!
ReplyDeleteYay! That's awesome it worked for you! Work smarter, not harder! I'm considering adding a second layer of credit card to the stack now that I'm thoroughly used to the single card.
ReplyDeleteThanks again to Kathryn for the instructions and to you for the shoutout & reminder of how valuable a technique this is! I forget mine is even in there sometimes.