[Elecraft] SKN History

[N2EY at aol.com]

In a message dated 12/19/05 11:54:03 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
rondec at easystreet.com writes:


> The first few SKN's I participated in were twice-yearly. I tried to look up
> the dates but can't find them. How about it Jim? 
> 

Well, I'm no expert, but here goes:

The first mention of SKN appears in QST for April 1970. K4MD suggested it,
and the first one was held on New Year's Eve/day of that year (1970--->1971).

First one was 8 PM to 1 AM local time. They got over 160 reports, and SKN has 
been repeated every year since then.

Quick timeline:

New Year's Eve 1970 --> 1971 - First SKN, 8 pm to 1 am local time. There has 
been a New Year's SKN every year since that first one.

New Year's Eve 1971 --> 1972 - Time extended: 8 pm to 3 am local time

July 1974  - Addition of "4th of July" SKN. Actually run the night of July 3 
if I understand the times correctly. 

New Year's Eve 1974--->1975 Time changed to 6 hour period starting at 0100 
UTC on January 1 (1975, actually, but in USA it starts on New Year's Eve).

New Year's Eve 1976--->1977 Time changed to 24 hour period starting at 0000 
UTC on January 1 (1976, actually, but in USA it starts on New Year's Eve).

July 1979 - Last "4th of July" SKN. Lack of participation cited as reason for 
cancellation; the New Year's event got more reports.

---

Researching SKN was a bit of a sporting course because in the early years it 
was a very low-key (arghhh!) event. It appears as a small paragraph buried in 
"Operating News", and doesn't show up on the ARRL indexes for the first few 
years. SKN didn't get a separate announcement or result until 1976.

But even with that tiny amount of publicity, the first one drew over 160 
reports and had over 600 different calls reported worked. 

One unusual feature of SKN has always been the short reporting deadline. ARRL 
wants reports within 10 days IIRC, not the usual 30 days. Of course the 
report can be very informal, or highly detailed. There is no "wrong" format of 
report!

I think there's a bit of a message in all that. If we aren't active, or don't 
report our activity, they'll change the format or even discontinue the event. 


73 de Jim, N2EY