01/13/2010 | K3PX SKN-2010 was an enjoyable event where I made 30 QSO's in 17 states and two Canadian provinces on 160, 80 and 40 meters with 7 different keys from my collection. My first key was a Danish made Amplidan #50713. The Amplidan is said to be a favorite of many seasoned commercial marine and coastal CW operators, worldwide. Some ops use the Amplidan as a "benchmark" when comparing or rating other keys. The other keys used were all meticulously hand crafted by Ron Ayling, G3YUH in Margate, England. Each is "one of a kind", well thought out, have excellent characteristics and response. Most have race ball bearings, alot of brass, solid oak and/or marble bases and a round engraved "builders disc" with callsign, serial number and date. Try entering G3YUH into your search engine for fantastic webpages or try: www.atdi24.dsl.pipex.com/ --------- My rig was an older ICOM from the 1980's/90's, the IC-735. It is a beautiful rig, small footprint, great receiver, especially with the narrow CW filter. Not many "bells and whistles", a simple rig and a pleasure to use. Some of my memorable QSO's with the best "FISTS" were with the following stations: WA3SLN, Mike in Montoursville, PA. He had a vintage novice Heathkit DX-20 transmitter at 40 watts. The signal had a beautiful, vintage CW note that was very pleasant to copy and was pounting in here on 80 M with a 59 plus 30 dB signal. Also, W9VES, Dave in Montclaire, NJ was using a homebrew 6BW6 osc/TX at 5 watts output and a receiver built into "cookie tins". What a fantastic signal, strong and steady and a pleasure to copy. Others were K8EHE, Terry in Dublin, OH; KC9KOJ, Bill in McHenry, IL; W2EFI, Don in Neversink, NY and WA8VTD, Tim in Saline, MI. The furthest DX stations were in Canada, ME, IA, and GA. I did not copy any west coast stations this year. I had very strong power line QRM/QRN this year and most of the QSO's were on 80 meters, as the band seemed to be better than 40, where I had trouble making QSO's. Normally, 40 is my best band. Most of the keys encountered were WWII J-38 and J-37, Speed-X, Nye, old railroad keys, etc. Happy New Year to all for 2010. Good DX and 73...........Bob Sechler, K3PX -- K3PX