Straight Key Night in Minnesota and Surrounding Areas

New Year's Eve is just around the corner. You could stay up and watch the
"ball drop" in New York at 11PM local or get on the air with your old Radio
Shack straight key and recapture some of the nostalgic magic of radio. It
will be fun. And this year, you can participate in a the ARRL sponsored
SKN and receive special recognition sponsored by the MWA.

Straight Key Night (SKN) is 24 hours. SKN 2004 begins at 6:00 p.m. CST
December 31 and runs for 24 hours through 6:00 p.m. CST January 1 (0000
--2400 UTC January 1, 2004). Rules are found here...

http://www.arrl.org/contests/rules/2004/skn.html

The Minnesota Wireless Association (http://wb0tra.no-ip.org/mwa/) is a
local contesting group whose official ARRL territory is a 175 mile radius
circle centered on Sauk Centre, MN. If you fall within the MWA circle, and
DON'T consider yourself a seasoned CW op, you could win a real J-38
straight key to replace that old Radio Shack special just by booking at
least 10 QSOs.

Anyone in MWAland is eligible to participate in SKN. However, to be
eligible to win the J-38, you cannot be a seasoned CW op. Anyone who has
posted over 2,000 CW contest QSOs or handled more than 100 pieces of CW
traffic is not eligible to participate in the grand prize J-38 special.
But forget about the awards. Just get on and operate CW!

SKN is not a true "contest." Instead, it is designed to promote CW as a
second language. There are lots of CW op wanna-bees in the area. There is
no better time than right now to start the learning process, and receive
some recognition for your effort.

Any participant within the MWA territory who completes 10 CW QSOs on SKN
(24 hour period) will receive an MWA Certificate of Achievement and a
personalized bottle of MWA SKN Brasso to help keep the old Brass Straight
Key in fine shape. The J-38 award, mounted on a beautiful Hickory (Pecan)
wooden base, will be presented based on representations and claims, rather
than any sort of log checking. The J-38 award will be based on time spent
operating, the number, and primarily the quality of QSOs (keep your notes
about name, city, state, RST, age, years a ham, other discussions in the
QSOs, etc., to complete the questionaire). A summary of those
participating will be posted on the MWA reflector and on the club's web
page in summary form only. The final award will be delivered to the
meeting this fall, although you need not attend the annual meeting to win
the J-38. A questionaire will be used to determine eligibility and final
awards. Decisions of the judges (N0FP Chair) are final. All official
correspondence regarding the MWA SKN should be emailed to .

Ford-N0FP