01/02/2007 | NT4XT Wonderful hearing so many Old Fashioned style CW signals on 40m! What fun! This is the year I purchased my first brand-new straight key. Made a special trip to HRO to find a decent key on Saturday. Every key I ever had previous to this was used.

I heard many excellent fists, more than ever before. My wrist only momentarily cramped up once in a while. Wished I had more time for the event, while I did manage 5 very enjoyable rag chews.

Running into Diz, Flying Pig #001 while I was running 80W was a big reminder about using only as much power as is needed. I sure felt like I'd been busted- as his Multipig+ 5 Watt signal was 599 to my ear, lounge chair copy! The encounter got me to drop to 20W. 40m conditions were good enough Sunday morning I am sure 5W would have still yielded strong signal.
WB9RNY spurred me on, to my personal straight key sending speed record. Before that SKN QSO, I did not know I could make a straight key go so fast! hi hi. Mike did an exceptional job, straight keying a sustained 23-25 wpm, Q5 readability, very impressive.

Tnx to N9JF, W7CCW, and KT2Q for FB SKN chats!
And, tnx to K8LEN, KU8T, who worked me Saturday afternoon before SKN officially kicked off. And, KA2PVT, who called me but my local noise level at that moment prevented a decent chat.

It was a real pleasure monitoring Bill, W9ZN, going at it with both Left and Right handed key work. Bill's R. handed sending truly is worthy of CW bulletins sent to the US Atlantic Fleet. When I came back to the hobby 6 years ago, hearing Bill for the first time I could not be sure if he was using an electronic keyer, in fact I didn't believe it, so he purposefully sent sloppy CW so I could know! LOL!

Applied history has never been more fun, and I'm looking forward to next year!

73 to all!

Darin.
FIST 9764, NAQCC 528, SKCC 1035, fpqrp 1027. -- NT4XT