As a technical guy I am also intrigued by all the "new" things that pop up
in ham radio. So, while hunting for VU2WAP on RTTY (never heard him) I
jumped into the fray when I saw that I could transmit something using MMTTY.
I had not set it up for Tx before. I was getting about 10w out with weak
audio level.
Don struggled to get my 001 and I struggled to copy his LOUD signal. But I
did get it and noticed a very slow (comparatively) auto tune and very narrow
tolerance for error. But I kept going. I didn't realize it was Bob at the
end of that 9K2 call but I worked him with no problem at all. I was just
stumbling around the keyboard running MMTTY with no contest logging or
buffers... what a WF1B etc appreciation trip !!
And I am also a fan of AFSK when set up properly...
So, how does this mode add to my contesting "pleasure". Pretty hard to say
I like it. Too slow with the present tuning algorythms and response times.
As ON7UI mentioned, more calling time is needed. And, that last pet peeve
of mine. I don't think most people, experienced 170 Hz FSK shifters and
those new to AFSK, handle AFSK very well. It is a real education and
experience problem that "appliance operators" just don't want to tackle. It
is not Plug and Play. The experienced FSK guys know how to tune and the
"listen" for it. The newer AFSK guys love the pretty waterfall displays.
As mentioned before, I do like to hear CW and now I have started to love the
45 baud 170 Hz shift tones of the RTTY music. It is even OK after 40 hours
of contesting. So this is different, and I often see the effects of those
who just look at the waterfall displays and don't have a clue about what
they hear and what is really happening. The result is QRM, broken
exchanges, and the conclusion that more power is better. And the auto tune
in this one was painfully slow. Improvements can be made, but, I am afraid
the casual contester is not going to want to make the effort needed to make
this mode a popular contesting one.
I am sure everyone has their own opinion... this is mine. But I will keep
improving my AFSK performance with narrow signal processing filters but
still listen to the music of 170 Hz shift in for contesting...
73, George .. W1ZT
----- Original Message -----
From: "Don Hill AA5AU" <aa5au@bellsouth.net>
To: "Digital DX (new)" <digital-dx@mla.nifty.ne.jp>; <rtty@contesting.com>
Sent: Saturday, September 01, 2001 1:19 AM
Subject: [RTTY] RTTY 23 - Someone please kill it!
> OK, I have had my introduction to RTTY 23. Someone please explain
> it's advantages. It's just like PSK31 but without error correction.
Sure,
> I've worked some nice stations like N7UVH, UX0FF, ZL2BR, 9K2/KM5FY,
> RK6BZ, W1ZT, K4GMH, SW1XV, UW5U, HB9AWS, W9HLY, MM0BQI,
> SP1MHV and UA6JR/3... but it was a real struggle.
>
> I'm not really sure what the objective is of this exercise. Yes, contacts
can
> be made using RTTY 23 but it takes lots of power and very narrow filters
to
> do it. It's an AFSK mode - enough said.
>
> I'm sorry guys & gals but RTTY 23 appears useless. Someone please
> kill it and put it out our misery.
>
> Thanks,
> Don AA5AU
> http://www.geocities.com/aa5au/
>
>
>
>
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