[CQ-Contest] SS exchange -- history and nostalgia

[Art Boyars]

Just a recap, mostly for those with Checks later than mid-'70s or who never did traffic handling.  The SS exchange is an analogy of the "official" ARRL message header.  In the earliest SS contests (1930's) you had to exchange actual messages of at least 10 words.  Later, the text and signature were dropped and you just exchanged headers.  I started SS in the mid '60s, and I'm going from memory.  Perhaps some of the more experienced guys (K7QQ QRV?) will amend or emend my recollection.

The message header:

* Message number.  In traffic handling we usually began a new series each month for the messages we originated.
* Precedence; was added, I think, around the early '70s.  Choice of R(outine), P(riority), or E(mergency).  SS translated that into power class A or B; I can't remember if Q and M were original or added later.  Then U and S got added.
* Station of origin.
* Check -- the number of words in the message (and, yes, traffic handlers really used this, like a parity check).  I'm not sure what was sent for Check when the exchange was changed to header-only, but I seem to recall people just sending the letters "CK" in the mid-'60s.  This was changed to "year first licensed", but I think that was not until the '70s.
* Place of origin -- city and state.  Now, Section.
* Time of origin (when the message was first sent).  In SS, this becomes the time of the QSO.  I believe that, even with header-only, people actually used to send a 4-digit time.  And not everybody was using GMT. I think that by the '60s people were just sending the text "TIME" (avoiding confusion), and somewhere along the line it got dropped from the SS exchange.
* Date of origin.  Again, by the '60s everybody was sending "DATE".  Then, somewhere around the late '60s, this was changed to your birthday.  I think this change came BEFORE the Check was changed.  And, of course, it has been dropped (maybe when Precedence was added??).

Changing Date to the birthday gave the same two problems that have been discussed here (ad nauseam) regarding CK:

a) What Date should a multi-op use?  I think people would pick one birthday and use it for all QSOs.

b) "Why should I be penalized because I was born on (say) November 30?"  As I have mentioned elsewhere, one year K3EST and I independently decided that we should not be so penalized, and we picked "better" birthdays.  We both picked "FEB 7".  I think I'll have to remember to send Bob a Happy Birthday radiogram -- In official form, with a header.

73, Art K3KU