Celebration of SKCC – K3Y Special Event

Special event, “K3Y,” the Straight Key Century Club’s annual January celebration, commemorates the Straight Key Century Club’s founding in 2006 following the American Radio Relay League’s “Straight Key Night” (SKN). A small group of participants wanted to extend the fun of SKN throughout the year. The Straight Key Century Club (SKCC) is the result.

For the first three years, the club’s founders used the special event callsigns of K1Y, K2A, and K3Y as the celebration’s special-event calls. But, someone cleverly noticed that a ‘3’ is nothing more than a backwards, curvaceous ‘E’. This “KEY” event has operated under the special event callsign of ‘K3Y’, ever since.

The on-air party is open to members and non-members alike. It runs from 0000 UTC Jan. 2 through 2359 UTC Jan. 31. It’s a great time to introduce others to the joys of hand-crafted Morse code using straight keys, bugs, and side swipers.

In this video, you can “sit in” with NW7US, the control operator of the regional activation of special event station, “K3Y/0”, during one of the many shifts during January (2015).

+ The SKCC website is at http://skccgroup.com

+ The K3Y special event page is http://www.skccgroup.com/k3y/index.php

+ The NW7US website is at http://NW7US.us

+ Some more CW/Morse code resources can be found at http://cw.hfradio.org

Visit, subscribe: NW7US Radio Communications and Propagation YouTube Channel

4 Responses to “Celebration of SKCC – K3Y Special Event”

  • Carl Neidert:

    got 15 of them this year. Always fun.

  • Carl NeidertK4EAY:

    left off call K4EAY

  • RANDALL, WV8RKL:

    THANKS FOR THE CONTACTS

  • Gerry - K2UBE:

    Hello,
    I have been a ham for about 45 years and am trying to develop my code skills. I was copying code last night on 80M and could not figure out the call K3Y/8 – I searched FCC database for variations of K3Y trying to find out who has this call! This morning I decided to Google K3Y/8 and found your website. I watched the Youtube video and printed off the SKCC Beginner’s Corner information – many thanks for the information. Once I am a little more confident in my code skills I hope to participate in the future.
    73’s
    Gerry

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