I have no particular attraction to contests and special event stations rate only a bit higher, But then comes Straight Key Night and there is nothing that can match it for sheer enjoyment. For family reasons my last SKN was back in 2018, but I told myself that this year I would not miss it, no matter what! Lately I have been renewing a long attachment to 30 meters, but 40 was my favorite SKN band, with a heady mixture of old keys, old rigs, and lots of senior citizens. Through the Fall I kept telling myself that it ws time to swap the 30M end-fed with the 40 meter version for SKN. Of course I procrasitinated until the holidays had arrived. Having just turned 80, snow on the back roof and a cold slog out to the tower meant that this year, for the first time, I woulf be doing SKN on 30 meters! I was just as irresponsible when it came to my straight keys. My two favorites, a classic Swedish Pump and a slick modern key from N3ZN, were both locked away in the cottage up north, with no chance of freeing them until the arrival of Spring (don't ask why) That left my Kent Titanic replica, which had been exhibiting in the curio cabinet  for a LONG time. The fine brass had tarnished to the point wwhere it might have been original salvage from the Titanic, but it was soon hooked up and worked with the typical easy arm motion of high-profile English keys.

Nothing much was expected on 10 MHz during the evening and very early morning and I did begin to wonder if there would be any 30 meter activity at all. I need not have worried, and the next day, from after breaakfast until I had to quite for social reasons, there was a nice relaxed stream of contacts. Eight in all, stretching from Alabama in the south, north to Vermont and as far west as Missouri. Nobody was in a hurry and I would typically take a break every two or three QSOs to relax my keying arm. A few things about 30 meters compared to my experiences on 40. First, everybody is relaxed, very friendly, and they ALWAYS aswer a CQ at the same spped it was sent. If you called a station at a slightly slower speed, that's the way they came back.Picking a best fist candidate was extremely difficult as it seemed that almost all the ops have great fists. 30 meter ops are generally excellent operators and everyone seems to belong to the SKCC. I give the SKCC program credit for upgrading the quality of straight key operatons on all the bands. What is missing 30 meters? Well, there was no nostalgic flurry of drifting transmitters and chirpy keying. 30 is a WARC band and all the rigs since the opening of these bands can be considered modern, even if they don't have DSP and built-in computer chips.  The second thing that was missing was dozens of friends from Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and western New York and Pennsylvania. This guys always puffed up my numbers during the day, but skip on 30 has the signals flying far overhead! By next year I woulf hope to have a practical way to work both bands. I have a nice permanent mag loop with remote tuning up at the cottage and that may be a solution for combining 30 and 40 meters in the same antenna - not as simple as it sounds! A great SKN and, as usual, lots of things to think about next year!