Bruce Kelley 1929 QSO Party

Event History

The 1929 QSO Party was started in 1991 and was championed for several years by Bruce Kelley – W2ICE who was an AWA co-founder. 

The Bruce Kelley 1929 QSO Party is an annual AWA sponsored event where participants either own an original or build a transmitter using the designs, techniques, and tubes that were available in 1929 and earlier with the purpose of trying to contact as many other 1929 stations as possible.  These transmitters can be very simple to build with plenty of help available should you need any guidance. 

This is a CW event, but don’t worry about your speed.  Most stations are using straight keys and speed is whatever you would like it to be.  Since early designed gear is used, it is a wonderful blend of whooping, chirping, buzzing, clicking, drifting, swishing, swaying, warbling, and other interesting signals.   This is what ham radio sounded like in 1929 and it’s 1929 again on the ham bands! As with our other “ON AIR” events, you do not need to be an AWA member to participate. 

Transmitter build information, use button to the right.

1929 Transmitters:  History, Construction and Operation

Event Details

​Each year’s contest has a unique set of details and rules of participation.  They can be see by clicking on the button to the right.

Results

After the event logs have been collected and the results tabulated, a set of event results are provided. The following button are links to the pages, which will contain the most recent results for this event.

The button to the right is linked to the Bruce Kelley 1929 QSO Party results page.