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[RTTY] Getting useful fills

To: "rtty@contesting.com" <rtty@contesting.com>
Subject: [RTTY] Getting useful fills
From: "Shoppa, Tim" <tshoppa@wmata.com>
Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2014 15:33:22 +0000
List-post: <rtty@contesting.com">mailto:rtty@contesting.com>
Like many others (just looking at IW1AYD's very good post mentioning macros for 
useful exchanges, he's got it right!) I sometimes get a little frustrated 
asking for fills.

If I ask "NR AGN NR AGN NR AGN NR AGN", I would like the guy on the other end 
to realize that I don't need the 599 repeated again. I don't need my call 
repeated again. What I need is for him to send the serial number - the one 
variable part of the exchange I need to get credit for the QSO - to me MULTIPLE 
TIMES so I can get a good print and beyond that a second print to verify things 
because the conditions are so marginal.

At that point I've already looked at your signal in multiple decoder windows. 
I've looked at it both shifted and unshifted. And I couldn't put together 
serial.

So if I ask "NR AGN NR AGN NR AGN NR AGN" please realize that I want you to 
send the number at least 4 times. Sending it 6 times wouldn't hurt either. 
Having a macro set up to do this efficiently - i.e. send me the serial without 
sending your call, without sending my call, without sending "GOOD MORNING 
TIMOTHY" and 599 each time - would be best. But I would like you to go into 
manual keying if necessary to do this all efficiently. I don't want to waste 
your time getting the fill, I want you to send it to me the most efficient way 
possible. I would suggest a "superfill" macro key that sends the variable 
information - like serials - repeatedly, with no repeat necessary for 599 or 
calls or anything else, if you do not like to do manual keying in a test.

If you send me the serial 4 times or 6 times, and no single one prints cleanly 
on my end, I will almost always be able to cross-correlate all your repeats 
into a "believable serial number" such that I don't need to ask for a fill 
again.

This is not a problem unique to RTTY, I also had it in spades on CW on the low 
bands in the summer. E.g. WAE CW this past summer, there is a serial I need to 
copy, but horrendous storm noise on 80M in particular mean that if I ask NR NR 
NR NR that I do not want you to send me the number once, I need you to send it 
multiple times. I do not need you to send 5NN. I do not want you to do wild 
speed CW changeups. I do not need you to send your call. I do not need you to 
send my call. I need the serial, because I'm having a very hard time copying 
it, and I need to copy it. WAE CW this past summer, I had huge problems copying 
even the biggest signal EU megastations on 80M. I contrast that sharply with 
80M in the RTTY RU - 80M was pristine and a huge success for me. Oh, 80M was so 
good. Well many other bands were good too! But I love 80M when it's pristine 
like it was in RTTY RU.

Tim N3QE
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