HEY! DON'T YOU STOP READING NOW THINKING YOU DON'T CARE ABOUT RTTY, THIS IS
LONG BUT KEEP GOING, ITS WORTH IT!!
This first part of the big 3 part CQWW fall contest is coming soon.
CQWW RTTY occurs the last weekend in September. It is an excellent chance
to test out antennas, radios, amps, and other station changes made over the
summer. It is also an excellent way to learn, or brush up on, SO2R or other
logging program features since you don't have to concentrate as much on
copying the exchanges and calls. You can pay attention to the computer and
the mechanics of your operating rather than worrying about making copying
mistakes yourself.
I look at RTTY contesting a lot like CW contesting, but quieter. While it
is useful to listen to the received signal to make timing exchanges go
smoother, you don't have to listen to most of the qrm and other noise, you
are just listening for the other guy to stop transmitting so you can start.
Also, with modern loggers, and more contesters realizing that RTTY is
gaining popularity, the pace of RTTY contesting is picking up. It wasn't
long ago that a typical exchange was repeated several times, extra 'hello'
and 'thanks' and brag stuff was added which slowed things down... now I
think most operators have figured out that rates well over 100/hr are very
possible if you cut out the chit chat and use exchanges like in CW contests
with just a few simple modifications.
And don't think that it takes lots of extra hardware of special stuff to get
into RTTY contesting. If you are using a logger like N1MM and have hooked
up your sound card as a voice keyer you are likely just one cable away from
RTTY operating. If you already have the computer playing audio to the
radio, all you need is to get the radio audio to the computer. With an
FT-1000mp, and probably many other radios, that can just be a single off the
shelf cable from the line out-on the back of the radio to the sound card
line-in. This lets you use the radio in SSB and send/receive AFSK. DON'T
listen to the pundits that say you 'HAVE TO USE FSK' to do good! I have a
wall full of plaques for winning North America, the USA, or the World, ALL
done with AFSK, and NEVER a complaint about the signal. And all I had to
add were 2 cables so I could use the narrow filters instead of SSB filters
using the mp's 'PKT' mode. And 100% FREE software!
It also presents you with some interesting technical operating capabilities.
With a single sound card it is possible to do SO2R and be decoding 2 bands
at once, and not lose a beat decoding the 2nd radio while transmitting on
the first. With 2 sound cards, or 2 computers with one card each, you can
decode BOTH VFO's on 2 radios at once, so you can both CQ and S&P on 2 bands
at once!! Talk about technique building!
CQWW RTTY has some very interesting operating features. First, it has a
very interesting Multi-Single Low Power category. We ran that here and were
able to win the World plaque a couple times, how many times has someone in
the states won a World plaque in CW or SSB??? This category makes it nice
for expeditions and other stations that don't have RTTY capable amps to do a
multi-op without a lot of big amps.
Next, CQWW RTTY is a 'Work Everyone' contest... You get to work everyone,
including stateside. Multipliers are states/provinces, countries, and
zones... so your first stateside and Canadian on each band are TRIPLE
multipliers! This adds to the activity and there are virtually no slow
times, there is always someone out there to contact.
And as in most RTTY contests there is no 160m, so while that might be
interesting if you have antenna changes there to test, at least you don't
have to worry about the end of summer noise quite as much. This also means
for M/S or M/2 entries you can spend more time on the productive 80m and 40m
night time bands.
So keep in mind, CQWW REALLY starts in September! Hook up those sound cards
and get on the air. Check out some of the digital contest reflectors and
web sites for hints and suggestions. Join the N1MM-Digital reflector if you
use that logger for all the up to date info (including a new update to MMTTY
to make it work better with Vista!)
David Robbins K1TTT
e-mail: mailto:k1ttt@arrl.net
web: http://www.k1ttt.net
AR-Cluster node: 145.69MHz or telnet://dxc.k1ttt.net
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