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[na-user] IMPORTANT: NA/RITTY users please read

To: <na-user@contesting.com>
Subject: [na-user] IMPORTANT: NA/RITTY users please read
From: dap14@chrysler.com (dap14@chrysler.com)
Date: Fri, 17 Jul 1998 10:38:15 -0400
For those NA users who operate RTTY with K6STI's RITTY/BITTY programs, here
is the latest status.

K9TM and I spent the better part of six hours installing a new sound card
into the main logging PC at K8CC and working with NA/RITTY last night.
Trying to set up a modern PnP sound card in a DOS computer is not a
straightforward process and consumed the majority of that time.  It was
such a mess that I'll be documenting it in a DATOM Tech Note in the near
future to hopefully avoid such grief for others.

The NA/RITTY receive problems have been traced to the "invert received
tones" feature.  Despite our best efforts (any many re-readings of K6STI's
spec) we had to remove this feature to make RTTY receive work properly.  I
will follow up with K6STI and work this out in the near future.

During our testing we also uncovered a few bugs in the received terminal
window from 10.30 that have been resolved.  Tim and I worked three or four
guys and are confident these are resolved.

One observation I made was that the receive autotune hotkey is inconvenient
for use in contests.  As implemented in 10.30, pressing Alt-7 toggled
receive autotune speed from OFF, SLOW, MEDIUM or FAST.  In a contest if you
called CQ with receive autotune in say, MEDIUM speed, it would take two
Alt-7 keypresses (1st to FAST, 2nd to OFF) to disable it to work the
station.  Once logged, it would take two more Alt-7 keypresses (1st to
SLOW, 2nd to MEDIUM) to restore your setting to prepare to work the next
station.

10.31 has a revised method for receive autotune control.  The text command
RITTY pops a window that allows setting the receive autotune speed from
OFF, SLOW, MEDIUM or FAST.  Once receive autotune is set, pressing Alt-7
toggles it ON or OFF as indicated on the screen telltale.

With this methodology, it was simple to add some logic to automate the
process and assist the weary contester.  When you press F1 to call CQ or
F3/= to call QRZ, the Alt-7 receive autotune inhibit is cleared.  To put it
another way, say you have receive autotune set for MEDIUM.  Press F1 to
call CQ - receive autotune is ON.  A station comes back so you tune him in
and press Alt-7 to disable receive autotune while you work him.  When you
call QRZ with either the F3 key or as part of pressing "=" to log the QSO,
receive autotune is turned back on and you're ready for the next station.
This is pretty cool, and I want to give credit for the idea to Tyler, K3MM
who is my expert adviser on all things RTTY.

K9TM is home today awaiting delivery of his new tower, so he is making good
use of his time by banging on NA/RITTY.  We expect to be able to upload a
revised new version this evening (Friday) which should give folks time to
get it installed for the RTTY NAQP tomorrow.  This version will have been
extensively tested so should be solid and bug free (famous last words).

Stay tuned!

K8CC



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