Synchronicity and RJ-45

Mark Twain wrote about examples of synchronicity: thinking of a friend in the morning and then receiving a letter from them in the afternoon and whatnot. A similar thing happened here yesterday. I received my RJ-45 breakout boards for the flying Rockmite at lunch. Last night, I listened to Episode 167 of Ham Radio Workbench where Mark N6MTS discussed his newly proposed open headset standard. And there it was, a system (a standard no less! that advocated for using RJ-45 connectors as well as CAT-5 cable between a radio and it's control/output equipement. That use of RJ-45 connectors has strengthened my conviction while inspiring a more complete idea for the whole Flying Rockmite system!

Prior to listneing to the podcast, I was very proud of myself for deicding to put in the energy to add a single RJ-45 connector to the Flying Rockmite so that it woul be easy to maintain. I still intended for the other end of the cable, the end hanging to the ground to look like this

After all, with the recent breaks in the keyer buttons I'd been using, I was back down to a three wire keyer anyway: (also note the San Francisco red yam antenna standoff back there)

But! But! The system proposed in the standard used two connectors:

and that got me thinking—the probably obvious thoughts—what if I used two connectors as well? What if the second connector (and RJ-45 breakout board) was on a tin that held the 12 AA batteries, had three mounted lever micro-switches, and a headphone jack? Everything would be so clean, so simple! We'll see where it ends up. For the moment, I'm looking for a clip, (kind of like an old time broom stick holder) to mount the battery holder into the box:

aforementioned broom stick holders "Crawford Silver Steel Grip Clip"

Any ideas? The battery pack needs to come in and out of the box easily as a unit.

Finally, this will also be a great thing (having a deicated keyer/headphones/battery box with RJ-45 connector) for the desktop version of the Rockmite!

Related:

Flying Rockmit RJ45 Breakout Board

Keyer Buttons Dead After Rain

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