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Re: [RTTY] Lack of RTTY on 40 and 80 Meters

To: "rtty @ COL" <rtty@contesting.com>
Subject: Re: [RTTY] Lack of RTTY on 40 and 80 Meters
From: "Thomas W4HM" <thomasfgiella@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2014 09:10:22 -0400
List-post: <rtty@contesting.com">mailto:rtty@contesting.com>
I make RTTY DX and rag chew QSO's every day on 10, 15, 17 and 20 meters. Also 30 meters in the evening EDT from here in central Florida. But 40 and 80 meters are slow when there are no ongoing contests as most ops are on the higher bands while the daily sunspot number is still at or just past peak.

As solar cycle 24 wanes more RTTY activity will shift downward (or is that upward) to 40 and 80 meters. Right now most RTTY activity is around 7040-7050 kHz and on 80 meters 3590-3595 kHz.

But 160 meters is a totally different animal

There was a time when there was allot of 160 meter RTTY activity between 1805-1810 kHz every winter DX season night time but now the band is virtually empty in comparison to years past. There "were" many ham's with full sized 160 meter transmit antennas that had been ham's for many decades and lived in the country or on large city lots and had the room for full sized 160 meter transmit antennas and specialized receive antennas such as four squares. Well the majority of those guys are SK now and many were active on RTTY.

Also virtually no RTTY contests include the 160 meter band. This made sense years ago when there was wall to wall CW activity between 1800-1840 kHz but any given night nowadays the CW sub band on 160 meters is virtually empty as most of those operators are now SK. There was also wall to wall SSB activity between 1840-2000 kHz and much AM activity between 1880 and 2000 kHz but the vast majority of that activity is now also gone due to the SK syndrome.

The only time I see allot of activity on 160 meters is during CW and SSB contests and even that amount of activity is down compared to yesteryear. This will be a controversial statement to some RTTY ops but I think it's time to include 160 meters during RTTY contests so that there is more activity on the band.

73 & GUD DX,
Thomas F. Giella W4HM
Lakeland, FL, USA
thomasfgiella@gmail.com

BARTG #8531
PODXS 070 #349
FELD HELD #141
30MDG # 691
DMC #1243
WARC-CC #20

W4HM Amateur Radio & SWL Autobiography: http://www.w4hm.org
W4HM's Medium Frequency Radio Wave Propagation Theory Notes: http://www.solarcycle24.org

The Republic can survive a fool for a president. It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools, such as those who made him their president




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