I made it a bit challenging this year:  Use only the Heatkit HW-16 with no VFO and (on top of that) use only a single crystal for all contacts.  So I dug out my box of five remaining Novice xtals--circa 1972--and picked 7.040 as the winner.  I used it on 40 at the fundamental freq and on 15 at the 3rd harmonic.  Boy, it wasn't easy finding someone to work up that high on 15m, even though the band was open when I started at 2115z.  After much CQ'ing, a soft reply came from K9TRK (Steve) in Jefferson City, MO.  It was nice to know that 50W into my attic dipole can still make it out.  We had a nice chat.  Thanks Steve.  After that, 30~40 minutes of CQ'ing produced no contacts, so I moved to 40m at 2235z.  Much more activity there, but not much time left.  I worked W6GLP (Jerry) in Pinon Hills, CA followed by K6KQV (Bill) in Cupertino, CA, then W0FBI (Dave) in Sedona, AZ and K7JUB (Al) in Tucson, AZ.  Incidentally, K6KQV was my very 1st ever SKN contact, so very nice to work you again Bill.  That was it for my 2012 SKN challenge.  The old "rock" and rig did a great job.  All my contacts had very nice signals and fists.  Thanks to all of you for a wonderful SKN.

Happy New Year & 73, Roger (SKCC #5268, FISTS #14324, NAQCC #3248)