I like Straight Key Night (SKN), but I’m glad it’s only once a year. It’s kind of fun to dig out the old straight keys, if only to remind ourselves to be thankful that we don’t have to use them every day. They’re a lot of work!
I mainly used the J-45 I purchased a couple of years ago. It’s a J-37 key mounted on a leg clamp. The key has a very nice action, but even so pounding on it for an hour is enough to wear me out. And on top of that, I could only send about 15 wpm.
Overall, I made five contacts on New Year’s Eve and two on New Year’s Day. This included two locals: K8KS and N8XMS. I could have done more, but my fist just wasn’t up to it.
What was gratifying is that there seemed to be more activity this year than last year. When I first turned on the rig, it was hard to find an open frequency. I only hope that SKN will encourage more ops to get on CW more regularly.
Leave a Reply