I'm curious about the operating techniques part of RTTY contesting.
Forget, for a moment, about the DX contests where the station QTH and antennas
can be a major contributor to score. The just ended NAQP is kind of a great
leveler - low power, $20,000 antenna systems are not a tremendous advantage and
there aren't too many rare multipliers. I looked at Don AA5AU's QTH on Google
satellite and it doesn't look like a world class contest station. A decent
tower on a suburban lot - well within the resource limitations of many hams.
I put an honest 9 h0our effort in. It would have been 10 except that it snowed
here for the first time this winter and my planned 2 hour break for dinner out
with my wife turned into 3. But, in my case, I doubt the extra hour would have
made a huge difference. I had a total of 429 QSO's and my best one hour rate
was 69.
I did learn this time to be more aggressive in switching from run to S&P when
the running QSO rate slowed down.
But what I really want to know is how many of the contesters who score north of
500 QSO's are running SO2R? When I consolidate my 2 QTH's this year, I will
build SO2R capability, but I need to know how much is dependent on my ability
and operating techniques and not station capabilities?
Al
AB2ZY
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