Straight Key Century Club
| Straight Key Century Club | |
|---|---|
| Abbreviation | SKCC |
| Founded | January 2006 |
| Purpose | Keeping hand-keyed Morse code alive |
| Membership | Free; open to licensed amateurs |
| Operating | |
| Allowed keys | Straight keys, bugs and sideswipers (cooties) |
| Regular events | Weekly sprint, monthly Weekend Sprintathon, January K3Y anniversary event |
| Basic awards | Centurion, Tribune, Senator |
| Member count | More than 31,500 (October 2026) |
| Online | |
| Website | skccgroup.com |
The Straight Key Century Club, usually shortened to SKCC, is an amateur radio club for operators who send Morse code with mechanical keys rather than electronic keyers. Founded in January 2006, it has grown into one of the largest CW clubs in the world, with members across North America, Europe, Oceania and Asia. Membership is free, and the club's sprints, awards and online scheduling tools make it a popular first stop for newcomers who want to make real contacts with a hand key.
Membership and keys
Any licensed amateur can join. Each member receives a permanent SKCC number, which is exchanged during contacts and counts toward awards. The club passed its 25,000th member on October 14, 2021, and by October 2026 its website listed more than 31,500 members, though not every number belongs to an active operator.
The club is defined by the key, not the speed. Contacts count for SKCC purposes only when they are sent with one of the three early types of manual telegraph key:
- the straight key, the classic up-and-down lever on which the operator forms every dit and dah (see Morse keys and paddles);
- the bug, or semi-automatic key, which makes dits mechanically while the operator forms each dah by hand;
- the sideswiper, or cootie, a single lever rocked side to side between two contacts.
Paddles driving an electronic keyer, and code sent from a keyboard, are outside the club's activities. The club publishes a key policy with the details.
Operating style
SKCC asks members to be considerate of the other operator's speed and skill, slowing down to match a newer or slower station. That makes its activity a comfortable place to practice Morse code on the air. A typical SKCC contact exchanges a signal report, name, location and SKCC number, and often continues into a relaxed ragchew.
Most activity is on the HF bands. The club's online Sked Page shows which members are on the air and lets them arrange contacts in real time; it was formerly known as the K3UK Sked Page.
Events
The club runs a full calendar of short operating events, mostly in the style of friendly contests called sprints:
- a weekday sprint of two hours each week;
- the Weekend Sprintathon, a monthly 36-hour event;
- Straight Key Sprints timed for operators in Europe and in Asia;
- the Slow Speed Saunter, for contacts at 12 words per minute or slower;
- the K3Y Anniversary Event every January, which marks the club's founding and celebrates January as straight key month. Members try to work as many of the special K3Y stations as they can.
The club also holds an annual QSO party and a monthly "Brag" tally of contacts with other members.
Awards
The award ladder rewards working other members, and the higher levels require working members who have already climbed it themselves.
| Award | Requirement |
|---|---|
| Centurion | Contacts with 100 different SKCC members |
| Tribune | As a Centurion, contacts with 50 different Centurions, Tribunes or Senators |
| Senator | As a Tribune at the "x8" level, contacts with 200 different Tribunes or Senators |
Each award has higher endorsement levels, and there are many others, including Worked All States and Worked All Continents in SKCC versions, a Triple Key award for using all three key types, prefix and DX awards, a QRP award and the Marathon award for 100 contacts lasting an hour each. Logging software that tracks SKCC numbers makes the bookkeeping much easier.