01/02/2007 | K1Y Special Events station K1Y, celebrating the 1 year anniversary of the Straight Key Century Club, SKCC. SKCC started as a result of SKN last year and has grown to over 2500 members. Such dedication to manual morse! With that as a backdrop, I entered into the fray as K1Y and proceeded to work a fist full of new friends, and a few old ones too. What a blast. I heard good fists and great fists but most of all I heard people behind those fists. Some were pretty fast, others were quite slow but that didn't matter. Each QSO was a blast and worth the time and effort. The magic that is manual morse continues to amaze me. Some choose to resurrect their old gear for this event, bring those old boat anchors and WWII keys back to life, but not me. My gear is all new. The rig is less than 1 year old. The SKCC special-edition key from Morse Express is just over a week old and works as nice as it looks. I used it through out most of the event. I did find one frustration though. I wanted to chat longer with each station but the special-event duties mandated that I move on to work the next station in line. I think next year I'll see if I can talk the XYL into forgoing the New Year's eve celebrations so I can devote more time to SKN as K2Y.

73 & God Bless y'all!

- Keith, SKCC 344 - -- N1AS