“Pi,” K1RV writes:Just wanted to remind everyone that this Friday’s usual 2000 – 2100 SST has been expanded into the brand new annual K1USN SST Open. As you all know, the K1USN SST has been a great place for many CW newcomers as well as rusty oldtimers to make your very first CW contesting QSO.
The upper “speed limit” has always been capped at a maximum speed of 20 wpm, with many stations including the K1USN club station usually sending at a reduced speed of 12 – 14 wpm each week.
The main purpose of the “once a year” SST Open will be to try to slow down everyone who is participating so that we can encourage even more of the less experienced operators to take the opportunity to get comfortable in a real CW contest atmosphere, albeit at a more casual pace. The K1USN club station has scheduled a number of our club members to activate K1USN on all the HF bands during the four hour event because one of the new contest rules will allow stations who work K1USN on each band to pick up 50 bonus points for each band they work K1USN. We plan to be on 10, 15, 20, 40, 80 & 160 meters at various times during the four hour contest to enable everyone to have the chance to increase their scores. All K1USN operators will be sending at a maximum speed of 10 wpm.
Here is a good way to find out what bands K1USN is operating on in real time during the contest –
Please check out the SST Open web page ( http://www.k1usn.com/sso_rules.html ) to learn the complete rules and to also obtain the link to download and install the new K1USNSSTOP UDC file from the N1MM Logger website.
You will notice that there are scoring multiplier incentives for operating at speeds slower than 20 wpm which should also encourage other CQing stations to slow down for the duration of the SST Open.
We hope to work many of you during this new event and invite you to spread the word.
GL & 73,
Pi – K1RV / K1USN