I heard lots of interesting stations and sat and just copied things most of the time. It was fun hearing signals that I recognized as "sounds" of the sixties, back when I had my Novice license. The chirps, hums and drifts were all so familiar, and to be honest, not missed all that much.

All of the contacts I made were very enjoyable. In all, I worked: K3CKT, KG4KGY, W0UI and N8NSN. I like to have long ragchews and I was starting to feel my arm after a while. My straight key was a Vibroplex straight key from the early 90's, keying a Heathkit HW-9. That particular HW-9 has an interesting history of its own. I took it on my motorcycle, a 600 cc Honda dirt bike, on a ride up to the Arctic Circle in the mid 80's. I rode from New Hampshire to an Eskimo village at the Beaufort Sea, called Inuvik. That adventure was covered in an article I did for Heathkit's magazine of that time.

As rough as the ride was, the rig is still performing nicely. This led to the most interesting QSO of the evening, with Jim, N8NSN. Jim is a Heathkit fan and has a fantastic Heath station. See his QRZ.com for some nice photos.

He was running a DX-60 with an HG-10 VFO. There was some drift, but who knows if it was my HW-9, or his DX-60? In any case, we had fun talking about the equipment and our Heath memories. After the QSO, I just sat and pondered how far we have come. Drift is a thing of the past in modern equipment. One thing from the past that is still pleasant is having a very enjoyable series of CW contacts on SKN. Maybe there is a mid-year weekend that we could have another event like it, say in July? I'm game.

Keep it up, I'm already looking forward to next year!