I was cold outside in North Dakota this News Year's Eve (-10 F) so it was a good night to break out the tube rigs and the straightkeys. I recently made a road trip to VE6-land recently and among other things there came back with me a very nice Johnson Viking Adventurer transmitter.  So I attempted to make some QSO's with that  1950's to 1960's rig with its three tubes (807 for a final). I managed to work W0AAA, Zed, on 40 meters using the Adventurer and my SX-101A Hallicrafters receiver.  All I have are 40 meter crystals except one lonely 20 meter one for the phone band. Zed could barely hear me but we made the first SKN QSO of the evening.  (I met Zed on Straight Key Night several years ago and during the conversation I discovered that I had a QSL card from his OM from 1935, which I sent to him.)  Further tries with the Adventurer were unrequited, so I upgraded to the Kenwood TS-830S and its nice CW filter and 100 watts.  I had a couple FB ragchews with Mike, AE7XI and Jim, W7YV. Both were good copy with nice fists.  For keys I used a Nye Viking straight key that also followed me home from the Edmonton trip and also my unlabeled generic straight key.  Not a lot of QSO;s obviously, but  I had a blast as usual on SKN. Now I gotta find some crystals for 80 meters....73, Rich, W0TF

P.S. I also worked Andy, KC4AAA, at the South Pole on SSB during a break in the SKN action this evening. That was very cool---he was only six degrees colder than at my QTH!