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we go Welcome to Amtop Live Call in Let's Talk
Neil's your guy Amtop Live Here we go Hey, good
evening everyone. It's time for another episode
of ham talk live. It's episode number 281 The
straight key century club recorded live on Thursday,
November 18th 2021 I'm your host Neil rap WB
9 VPG. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of
ham talk live tonight. We're joined by Ron AC2C,
Ted KHAQM, and Doug N3PDT from the Street Key
Century Club. And we'll talk to them in just
a few minutes. And a little later in the show,
we will take your phone calls live. So we'll
give you the phone number for that here in just
a minute. Um, last week here on the show though,
uh, Michael Colley w four ORL was here to talk
about Orlando hamcation. So if you missed the
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Well, welcome back to ham talk live tonight,
uh, Ted K eight AQM and Doug in three PDT and
And we'll see if we get Ron back here, AC2C.
They're joining us on the Orlando Amateur Radio
Club and Hamcation Zoom line tonight. They are
members of the Strait Key Century Club. The club
is the most active group of mechanical key Morris
Code radio telegraph operators in the world.
The organization was formed in 2006 and sponsors
events, awards, newsletters, and more. So guys,
welcome to the show. Now, how about now? Thanks
for having us. Oh, there we go. Ah, must have
been the mute button. All right. Very good. Well,
glad you're here and I'm actually doing this
following up on a story that I was assigned to
read for amateur radio news line a few weeks
ago that you had a big membership milestone and
just kind of reminded me about the street key
century club. So we're going to talk about that
here in a little bit, but before we get into
that. Um, let's just talk about the straight
key century club for a few minutes. So what is
it and, and what, what are you trying to do?
What's the mission of SKCC? Well, as you mentioned,
Neil, the, uh, SKCC started in 2006, early 2006.
Excuse me. And then, um, right after, um, soon
after one of the, uh, ARRL. straight key nights,
which is on New Year's Eve and on New Year's
Day. Some talk got started on QRZ .com forums,
and Tom Peterson, KC9ECI, decided, well, this
sounds like fun, let's start a club, I'll be
number one. And within, oh gosh, within a couple
of months. Well, within days there were over
100 members and it started going exponentially
from there. And of course the purpose is to preserve
the art of mechanical or manually created Morse
code. And following the lead of ARRL's event,
And we don't go with just a straight key. Any
mechanical key is usable. A bug or a cootie,
or if you design something that mechanically
makes the characters and the elements, it's legal
to use. Okay, very good. Well, I remember getting
started. with my novice license I was on the
straight key constantly and did get an electronic
key later on but still use the old straight key
every once in a while and it's a lot of fun and
you know it takes a little more a little more
training because you have to to make sure that
your dits and does are the right length and everything
So, it's great that you're working on that, keeping
that around. Well, let's talk a little bit about
the membership. You just hit a big milestone,
so tell us about that and all the excitement.
Oh, wow. Yeah. We've been watching that membership
number go up the last few months. Last, oh gosh,
now I should have wrote down the date, but about
a month ago, we hit number 25 ,000 and that went
to a club in Maryland, W4USI. And so we're very
thankful to have them. I think we're already
over 25 ,100 by now. They just keep rolling in.
Yeah. I mean, and this is... You know, since
2006, so it's quite an accomplishment getting
25 ,000 members in that short time. Well, we've
called ourselves the fastest growing CW club
in the world. I'm going to stick to that until
somebody proves me wrong. Well, people usually
think of the straight key as, you know, again,
just something that you push down on. The bug,
I remember when the bug thing kind of caught
on and people were like, oh, I don't know if
I can use that thing or not. But you have other
types of keys that are allowed besides just the
push down on the straight key in those events
that you sponsor. So talk a little bit about...
the criteria, and what's considered a straight
key, what's not, and what's allowed in the events
and what's not. Sure. It's really very simple.
If the device you use manually creates the dits
and does, it's usable. So that's your straight
key, your side swiper or cootie, and your semi
-automatic or bug. that makes the dits with a
spring. A buddy of mine in New Jersey sent me
a key he made from a big chunk of plastic material
like you put on a snow plow blade. He put a metal
plate on it and made kind of a stylus because
he couldn't – and just by tapping it like you
would a pen, he kind of rolled his fist a bit.
to make the characters because he had a wrist
condition and he couldn't use a straight key
or a bug very well. This device qualifies as
a mechanical key. Of course we use those for
all of our awards and activities. One needs to
be using some sort of mechanically created Morse
code. And that includes our sprints. We have
a weekend sprint -a -thon once a month, 36 hours
over a Saturday and Sunday. We have a fourth
Tuesday night local times. We have a two -hour
sprint. We have, I forget which Thursday of the
month it is, we have a European sprint. The time
slot is more conducive to those guys making contacts.
We have also different kinds of awards and levels
of achievement. One of our awards we call the
Triple Key Award, the TKA. And Ted, you may correct
me on the number, but I believe you have to make
100 contacts with other SKCC members using each
key. So you come up with a total of 300 contacts,
100 on a straight key, 100 on a cootie, 100 on
a bug. Even more important on that Doug those
contacts must be unique. So that's 300 unique
straight key members. Oh very good point. Yes
You end up working a lot of folks. Yeah And another
event that Doug didn't mention If I can just
put this in for those new to CW is what we call
our straight key saunter which meets the first
of every month, and we ask people not to send
faster than 12 words a minute. This is to help
newcomers into CW learn the code and participate
in our events. Excellent. Yes. Yeah, a good move,
you know, to slow it down a little bit and get
the beginners... a chance to catch up. I know
my CW skills, you know, while, yeah, I did nothing
but CW for many years, that was a long time ago.
And so I make one on occasion now. So I'm not
as proficient as I used to be. Uh, so, you know,
slower is better. So that definitely helps to
have that option. Now I'm going to, I wanted
to throw you a question here and I try not to
throw too many curve balls when I have people
on the show, but, but this one just happened
to come to mind. I have an app called, I think
it's Morris it. on my iPhone that I would use
when I was doing a high school ham radio club.
Three or four different groups, one to learn
CW. So I would use that. Now it works like a
straight key because the tones are only sent
when I push down on the touchscreen. So I have
to make the length of my dits and the dots myself.
Would that count as a straight key? So the length
of the dips and the dots and the spacing of the
characters is totally controlled by you. It's
only making a noise. Well, we'd probably all
have to put our heads together on it and I would
vote that that would count. Because you're creating,
you're digitally, by hand, creating Morse code.
Now, how do you get that into a continuous wave
so you can use it on the air? Yeah, yeah, right.
Yeah, you'd have to rig up something to detect
the sound and then recreate the sound, I guess.
Yeah, I thought, hmm, I'm going to ask that question
just to... Yeah, you still have to have those
skills of, you know, the dollars, you know, three
times as long as the debt and, you know, and
the spacing and, you know, doing all that stuff.
But it is digitally created. So that's a gray
area, I guess. Give us something to discuss at
a board meeting. Oh, there you go. You can have
a committee on that, right? There you go. Yeah,
have something to talk about in the next meeting.
So there you go. All right. Well, why don't you
run down some more of the awards and let people
know what wallpaper they can get here. Sure.
Ted, do you want to talk about the... We'll talk
about the Centurion Tribune and Senator. Sure.
Sure. Very easy. The Centurion is the first basic
award and what you have to do is work 100 different
SKCC members. that will get you a C behind your
number. Like my number is 1629, and if I got
the Centurion award, it would be 1629C. And I
would send that from now on so people would know
I'm a Centurion. The next level is the Tribune,
which requires 50 C members or T members, Tribune
members. And that's not It used to be hard to
get because we didn't have that many members,
but now it's quite easy. And then the big one
is the Centurion Award, which requires 400 different
contacts to get the Centurion Award. So you would
be 1629S, you could be 1629T, you could be 1629C.
So those are the three basic beginning awards.
Go ahead, Doug. Alrighty. And then beyond basically
achievement levels is how I think of those. We
also have worked all states, worked all continents,
DX awards, QRP awards, a mile per watt award,
a rag chew award, the triple key, the TKA I mentioned
earlier, also a prefix award that I don't quite
understand, but it's pretty interesting. to chase
the different prefixes, and then Canadian Maple
Leaf, which is one of Ted's favorites, by the
way, who also holds a Canadian call sign. One
of the neatest awards in my mind that we do,
and probably one of the most, well, if not the
most difficult to attain, we call the Marathon
Award. And you need to have at least 100 QSOS,
100 unique QSOS. that last at least 60 minutes
long, obviously with different SKCC members.
And there's only four of those, I believe, been
awarded. I think we may have another person getting
close, but since 2006, only four people have
achieved that. So that's one of my favorites.
I'll be right back, guys. I have a dog barking.
Okay. All right. Well, just in time because we're
going to take a break here in just a second.
So that's good. But yeah, you've got quite a
variety of awards there for different levels.
And I think that's a great deal to have different
levels of the awards and different unique things.
So that's very good. There's always something
to work towards. Yes. Exactly. Always something
to work toward. All right. Well, if I can get
my mouse going here, we're going to take a break.
And when we come back, we will take your phone
calls and your tweets and comments here on HamTalk
Live about the Strait Key Century Club. That's
our topic tonight. So we'll be back with Doug
and Ted right after this word from ICOM America
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Give us a call at 859 -982 -7373. Again, the
number to call is 859 -982 -7373. Or, if you'd
rather type than talk, tweet us at HamTalk Live.
Now, here's Neil Rapp with more HamTalk Live.
Here's the snap, Rapp takes the rig, he breaks
through the pile up, he's on 80, now 40, now
20, 15, 10, 2 meters, touchdown Hamtok Live!
Welcome back to HamTalk Live. We're on the air
every Thursday night at 9 p .m. Eastern Time
right here at HamTalkLive .com and be sure to
check us out on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram
and you can find out who's coming up on the show
over at HamTalkLive .com. Well, uh, before we
get back to, um, the guy is here from the straight
key century club. Uh, we, we do have our usual
segment, uh, And it's CW themed, guys, so this
is our usual segment right now in this part of
the show. It's the N9GSU Joke of the Week. Now
it's time for the HamTalk Live Ham Radio Joke
of the Week, the part of the show where Rick
tells us a ham radio joke. The HamTalk Live Ham
Radio Joke of the Week is brought to you by QRM
Labs. Now, here's Rick Garrett, N9GSU, with today's
HamTalk Live Joke of the Week. week. I inadvertently
offended a fellow ham, so I sent him an apology
in CW. It was in remorse code. This has been
the Ham Talk Live Ham Radio Joke of the Week
with Rick Garrett in 9GSU. Tune in again next
week for another joke from Rick. Alright, there
you go guys. Yeah, yeah, I like Ted's Ted's comment
Ted said ouch Well, thanks Rick for the joke
and we'll be back with another one in the next
episode of ham talk live That's it nine GSU.
Thanks a lot All right, well now it's time for
your phone calls. So if you have a question for
Ted or Doug, give us a call at 859 -982 -7373.
Again, 859 -982 -7373 is the phone number. Give
us a call right now or you can... comment. If
you're on Spreaker, you can comment there if
you've gotten a Spreaker account and you can
also tweet us. So it's at the if I can talk at
ham talk live on Twitter. And we have a tweet
that we're going to answer here in just a moment.
So you can type to us as well. But if you're
listening to us on WTWW or on the podcast edition,
you won't be able to to call us because we're
doing this live on Thursday evening. So we're
going to talk a little bit more about some of
the stuff that the Strait Key Century Club does.
But first, we have a tweet from a listener, Jacob
KG7EQN, a frequent listener of the show. And
here's what he says as someone learning CW. Where
is a good place to find SKCC hangouts on different
bands? I'm coming from the Long Island CW club
and idea of learning Is the straight key century
club involved in the giving back initiative?
And do I have to use a straight key? So I guess
we, we kind of answered the last part, but, but
let's talk about good places to find a straight
key century club members on different bands and,
and, uh, and the giving back. Well, uh, first
off, thanks Jacob for your, um, your question.
Uh, we SKCC has recently, um, I don't want to
say partnership, but we're working with LICW.
We present a class for that group every week
on SKCC basics, so we're glad to see Jacob over
here. The best places to find our watering holes
would be, number one, the website, and that is
skccgroup .com. page opens up there's a on the
left side there's a column of buttons for all
the different subjects if you go down about I
think oh three or four from there there's a getting
started the getting started link and that shows
you suggested calling frequencies so it's on
the web page skccgroup .com under under the getting
started tabs. Also, we have a sked page where
you can sked your QSOs with other SKCC members
live in real time, and that is sked .skccgroup
.com. And I bring that up because if you go to
that page and look along the bottom, There's
just a line that says SKCC frequencies and it
shows you our watering holes. Plus you can see
the SCED page, which is a great tool for finding
other SKCC members. As for giving back, we have,
I'm not sure if we're official. Ted, do you know
if we're an official partner in that? I know
that some of us participate. No, we're not an
official part, but I'd like to add one thing
for Jacob. If he is not an SKCC member, or even
if he is, most SKCCers will answer somebody not
using the straight key. I mean, if I'm calling
CQ and somebody calls me and they're not using
the straight key, I'll answer them. We can't
count it as a valid SKCC QSO, but it is a legitimate
QSO, and we'll do it. Also, just to point out,
on 40 meters and 20 meters, we have an area for
beginners, and that's usually like 7 .114 or
14 .114. Those are the real slow beginners area.
Go ahead, Doug. Yeah, thanks for bringing that
up. Covered a couple things. I miss I appreciate
that All right, well Jacob thanks for for asking
that Doug you have something else there No, I
was just stammering my way out. Oh, okay Well
Jacob, thanks for listening as always and and
we hope we've answered your question So if you
have a question, give us a call right now at
eight five nine 9827373 or tweet us like Jacob
did over at ham talk live on Twitter and We'll
get as many questions in as we can Well, this
next one is going to go to Ted Because he's the
the newsletter guru here so tell us about The
newsletters and you know, how much news is there
about straight keys? You know to put in a newsletter
Well, first of all, I'll tell you it's a quarterly
newsletter and much of it is submitted by members
which include articles about antennas key restoration
and building technical tips mini DX trips that
they go on to allow us to work various states
and activity results of our events including
pictures of various stations and comments for
the work weekend sprint, the slow speed saunter
and just all upcoming events are mentioned and
it usually ends up to be pretty close to 70 pages
every quarter. And it's free and downloadable
on the web. Well, there we go. There's the big
word, free. Very good. It's so nice, if I can
to the horn, it is so nice to read a newsletter
that takes me more than one sitting. Yeah, very
good. Well, let's talk about some of the events
and Contests, sprints, those kinds of things.
We talked about the awards. Let's talk about
some of the events. Sure. Well, Doug, I think
you should definitely tell them about the K3Y
event. I was just getting ready to say you should
tell them about that. But I'll start and you
can fill in. We can draw straws if you want.
K3Y event, that is our annual anniversary event,
and we do that the entire month of January. We
apply for the call sign K3Y. If you write it
down, it looks like key. It didn't start off
that way. It took us three years to get there.
They went K1Y, K2Y, and then K3Y, all of a sudden,
well, oh, we'll keep that one. We activate all
10 call districts, most US possessions. I think
like sometimes Guam didn't get in there. A lot
of Western Europe gets activated, Oceania, occasionally
Asia, but we spend that month trying to contact
all the different call districts and entities.
welcome to take the call. So like I operate as
K3Y -0, I don't know, 10 or 15 times during that
month. And we get to experience being the object
of a small pileup. We get to reconnect with folks
we hadn't talked much with over the year. But
we spent an entire month just lighting up those
areas of We call it the SKC areas of the bands
with mechanically created code. Also, in last
year's event alone, Neil, in one month's time,
there were 46 ,000 K3Y contacts. Wow. 43 ,000.
Very impressive. We also have a similar event
now that's just started in October. for Canadian
operators exclusively to allow members to work
all the various provinces and work on some of
the Canadian awards that SKCC offers. This year
we ran VE9 SKCC. We got too many complaints about
glass arms that the call was too long. We're
going to opt for CK3Y, which fits very nicely
with K3Y and is available Canadian call. So that's
for the entire month of September. Our first
inaugural event, we made nearly 1 ,500 contacts.
So it was a lot of fun. Those are our big events.
Excuse me. We also, of course, have many other
Monthly events and I'll get my notes back up
here. We have a two hour sprint that is on the
fourth Tuesday of the month. We call that the
straight key sprint or the SKS. We have a 36
hour event on the second, beginning the second
Saturday of the month. We call that the weekend
sprint -a -thon. That's 36 hours starting on
a Saturday morning and going through Sunday evening.
That's very popular. There's also the European
sprint I mentioned earlier. It's a two -hour
event on the first Thursday of each month. It's
tied to British Standard Time. Oh yes, absolutely.
When we're not sprinting and we're just making
contacts for fun and contacting other SKCC folks,
we can log those in our BRAG log and we turn
those in once a month. Some folks turn in two
or three and some folks turn in two or three
hundred. That's a good one. There was one other
I was going to mention though, the slow speed
saunter and also The first of the month beginning
at 000 UTC, this is a straight key night for
the next 24 hours. There's nothing to turn in
on that. It's not tracked in any way. We just
get on and try to make some noise on the airways.
And one thing to make clear, Neil, when we talk
about sprints, one does not sprint in the CW
world with a straight key. The speed has nothing
to do with the word sprint Yes, it's a time.
It's a time issue. It's a time Okay, I just want
to make sure that your listeners didn't think
we were going 30 35 words a minute on the straight
key Yeah, if you can get up to 70 words a minute
on a straight key. We've got a very special award
for you, right? And hopefully I can pay for my
medical expenses too. I think it would be called
a liar's club award. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
Oh my goodness. Well, guys, we're about to finish
up here and I don't see any more questions from
the audience here. So let me just give it. to
you one last time to make any final comments.
And then we've got a couple of things to tend
to here before we sign off tonight. Well, first
off, thank you once again for graciously inviting
us, Neil. We appreciate that. And I've had a
lot of fun. I would just like to encourage anyone
who has any interest at all to go to skccgroup
.com. Check out our website. It is free to join.
And no obligation. And it's a lifelong thing,
too. There's no renewal. Once you get an SKCC
number, it's yours forever. And we'd love to
have you. Ted, you got anything? No, I think
you pretty much covered it all, Doug. And I'll
just add, Neil, thank you very much for the opportunity
to tell you about the Strait Key Century Club.
Well, I appreciate you being here and Congratulations
on 25 ,000. That's thank you fabulous and all
the great events at awards that you're doing
and I Found my my straight key in the basement
the other day I may have to I may have to get
it hooked back up again and soon as I go to this
new house and get on We'll go to the sked .skccgroup
.com page and we'll get together and try that
key out. Alright. Sounds great. Well, thanks
guys for coming on the show. We've got a couple
things to tend to and then I'll be back with
you, but thanks a lot for being here. Thank you.
Our pleasure. All right. Well that is a wrap
for this week's edition of ham talk live. Thanks
to my guests Ted K8 AQM and Doug N3 PDT and everybody
out there in cyberspace for listening and calling
in and Invite you back all in two weeks. I'm
gonna take next week off for Thanksgiving. So
Enjoy your Thanksgiving and come back Thursday,
December 2nd uh... at nine p m eastern time for
a list of our upcoming guest visit ham talk live
dot com and don't forget about the remote license
test giveaway uh... go to win w i n dot ham talk
live dot com to read the rules and enter the
giveaway and again the deadline is november thirtieth
so uh... this will be the uh... the last time
that i'll be talking about it uh... here on the
show. We'll make sure we publicize it on our
social media outlets again before the end of
the month. But go over there and register and
you could win a free upgrade or if you haven't
got a license yet, well now's a great time, we'll
pay for the fee. uh... tanner w nine t w j's
graciously uh... donated that so uh... he can
uh... take care of your your testing needs so
uh... before we sign off tonight uh... i wanted
to take a moment uh... got some sad news on tuesday
and uh... wanted to take a moment to remember
a very special silent key uh... tuesday night
uh... if you haven't heard uh... green county
ohio sheriff gene fisher KX8GCS had a medical
emergency and became a silent key. When he became
a ham, I remember he went all in. He started
off knowing everyone and getting all kinds of
stuff, all kinds of support, and he just jumped
in and went. Uh, all in, he was a tremendous
friend to the Dayton hamvention, which is now
held in green County. I believe that's where
he actually was introduced to ham radio was,
was with trying to take care of traffic situations
for hamvention. He often stood at the front gate
and welcomed everyone on their way into Hamvention
and he was instrumental in solving some of those
traffic flow issues that first year and at the
new place and made sure people were safe and
make everyone feel welcome. He's been on this
program a few times as well. We'd have him on
the night before Hamvention and talk about traffic
and road construction and that kind of thing.
And one night he was supposed to call in and
couldn't. And the next morning I got to Hamvention
and he apologized and gave me this special Green
County challenge coin, which I still have. And
so I just was saddened to hear this happened.
I think he was 65, I think is what I read in
the Daily News today. But he often traveled with
Hamvention staff to other hamfests, including
Hamcation, and became a part of their team. And
he was attending an Ohio sheriff's conference
when he had the medical emergency and and died
So our prayers are with his wife and family and
and the entire Dayton ham vincen family as well
because He was such a friend to ham vincen. So
Remembering gene Fisher kx8 GCS All right, well
We'll take a week off for Thanksgiving and come
back. We've got some shows lined up. I just want
to make sure that we have the dates confirmed
before we announce those, but we've got some
cool stuff coming up, so make sure you tune in
here in a couple of weeks, and happy Thanksgiving.
So for now, this is Neil Rapp, WB9VPG, saying
7 -3, 7 -5, and may the good DX be yours. You
never once mentioned your weather at all and
I didn't mention mine We talked and talked for
hours and hours