Never done this contest before. So practiced with QTC before the contest,
which helped but still took a few QTC exchanges before it became more
natural.
I made 1166 Qs all together with rates peaking at 300/hour. As you probably
worked out I run SO2R. I operated for about 20 hours in total. However I was
more interested in how a currently under test version of 2Tone worked.
The test version of 2Tone looks for duplicate strings of data separated by
white space characters. Once a match is found, 2Tone combines the analogue
data from each string bit by bit taking into account individual bit error
probability, to produce a revised character string. It did that successfully
especially for callsigns and for many serial numbers. Too many people send
123-123-123 as the serial number so no white space and no shift characters
for the repeat serial numbers so miss the figures shift at the start and
many will just see garbage and ask for a repeat. I notice some adapted it by
send 123 -123 -123 better because the space character then forces a figures
character to be sent before the -. Better still is 123 123 123, why send a
character that has no meaning?
I would say the new system gave me an advantage for about 3 to 4% of QSOs by
either confirming what was sent when one of the duplicates strings was
different to the other or by correcting a missing /corrupted shift character
turning what looks like garbage into good copy. But I also learnt how to
further reduce the number of false matches. Be interesting to see what the
testers made of it.
I am pleased to see that more and more people are using narrow bandwidth
transmissions. However too many of those old Icoms are still being used on
FSK that take up several KHz of bandwidth when there is the technology
available to just take up 350Hz maximum.
73 David G3YYD aka M7T in contests
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