ARRL RTTY Roundup
Call: N0AX
Operator(s): N0AX
Station: N0AX
Class: SO Unlimited LP
QTH: MO
Operating Time (hrs): 4.5
Summary:
Band RTTY Qs Dig Qs
-----------------------
80:
40: 17
20: 42 44
15: 1
10:
-----------------------
Total: 42 62 State/Prov = 28 Countries = 5 Total Score = 3,432
Club: Society of Midwest Contesters
Comments:
This was a big learning experience for me - felt like old times figuring how to
do this contesting stuff! RTTY, I had done before, so that was pretty
straightforward. FT8, not so much.
After a lot of procrastinating, I upgraded to WSJT 2.0 this week and got in a
little practice, made sure everything worked, then answered CQs for a while.
FT8 is an interesting mode. I think we're just starting to figure out how to
compete with it. The highest rate mode, it's not, if you manually click each
line. Clever operators clearly have some better techniques at work so I could
go faster, no doubt. Still, this time was about learning, not top rate.
One thing that is really interesting and reminds me of back in my Novice days
with a crystal or two and an HW-16. You would call CQ on the crystal frequency
and then tune around for other Novices with different crystals calling you
somewhere else in the band. The decoder takes the place of tuning across the
band, but the feel is similar. I called CQ for a while and was clearly not as
effective as some but did put QSOs in the log.
Clearly lots of upside to be gained in operator skill. One thing I will say for
FT8 - it sure is a colorful mode! Also, the cats are not impressed with all the
squealing. They decided it was a little better to go sleep on the couch, hi.
Hope to be on the air more with this mode and MSK144. My backyard wire antenna
at the home station is more than enough to make lots of QSOs.
73, Ward N0AX
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