SKCC Straight Key Sprint Europe (SKSE)

Two hours of straight-key CW on the first Thursday of every month, at nine in the evening in central Europe whatever the clocks are doing.

Rules at skccgroup.comThe rules are the sponsor's. This page holds the dates and the facts.

When it runs

First Thursday of every month

2100 → 2300 Thursday

Times are the sponsor's own clock in Europe/Berlin, so the UTC instant moves an hour across a daylight-saving boundary. The runnings below are the resolved instants.

Next runnings

2000Z Thu 5 Nov → 2200Z Thu 5 Nov · 2h2026
in 35 days
Logs due 2200Z Thu 12 Nov
2000Z Thu 3 Dec → 2200Z Thu 3 Dec · 2h2026
in 63 days
Logs due 2200Z Thu 10 Dec
2000Z Thu 7 Jan → 2200Z Thu 7 Jan · 2h2027
in 98 days
Logs due 2200Z Thu 14 Jan
2000Z Thu 4 Feb → 2200Z Thu 4 Feb · 2h2027
in 126 days
Logs due 2200Z Thu 11 Feb
2000Z Thu 4 Mar → 2200Z Thu 4 Mar · 2h2027
in 154 days
Logs due 2200Z Thu 11 Mar
1900Z Thu 1 Apr → 2100Z Thu 1 Apr · 2h2027
in 182 days
Logs due 2100Z Thu 8 Apr

Operating

Modes: CW
Bands: 160m80m40m20m15m10m6m
160 through 6 m excluding the WARC bands -- SKCC names 60, 30, 17 and 12 m as excluded.
Exchange: RST, QTH, the operator's name and the SKCC number. Non-members send 'none' for the number.
Logs: due 7 days after the end
Who can enter: Anyone, anywhere.
'Open to all licensed amateurs, as well as shortwave listeners.' European in aim and timing rather than in entry.

Where this comes from

Checked against the sponsor: Yes. The rule on this page was read off Straight Key Century Club's own published rules. Link last confirmed 2026-08-23.
What the source says: skccgroup.com/operating_activities/skse/, the club's own rules: the Straight Key Sprint Europe runs on 'the FIRST Thursday of Every Month', at 2000Z-2200Z in January, February, March, November and December and 1900Z-2100Z from April to October, with fifteen-minute QRS extensions at each end. Bands: '160-6 meters, excluding the WARC bands (60, 30, 17, and 12 meters)'. Straight key, sideswiper or bug only. Exchange: 'RST, QTH, operator name, and SKCC number', 'none' for non-members. 'Open to all licensed amateurs, as well as shortwave listeners'. Logs by '2359 UTC on the Thursday following the event'. Checked 2026-08-23.
Recorded caveats: SKCC PRINTS TWO UTC TIMES AND THE CONTEST HAS ONE LOCAL TIME. 2000Z from November to March and 1900Z from April to October are both 2100 in central Europe: CET is UTC+1 and CEST is UTC+2. So this is not a contest that changes its hour twice a year, it is a contest at nine in the evening that Europe's clocks move around, and it is recorded the way the sponsor means it -- `timezone: Europe/Berlin` with wall_clock times, exactly as the ARS Spartan Sprint is recorded in New York. THAT READING IS TESTABLE AND IT PASSES ON THE MONTHS THAT DECIDE IT. Europe changes clocks on the last Sunday of March and of October, and the first Thursday of both months falls on the near side of the change: March is still CET and resolves to 2000Z, April is CEST and resolves to 1900Z, October is still CEST at 1900Z, November is CET at 2000Z. All four match SKCC's own table, which is what makes this one rule rather than two. Encoding it as two records split by month -- winter and summer -- would have produced two entries with the same name and hidden the reason. Encoding one UTC time would have been wrong for five months of the year. Straight keys, sideswipers and bugs only: no keyer, no keyboard. That is the club's whole premise rather than a category. The fifteen-minute QRS extensions at each end are not in the window: they are an invitation to slow operators rather than part of the scored period.

Something wrong? How to report it — a link to the sponsor's own page is all it takes.

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