[CQ-Contest] Suggestions for RTTY RU

[DickT-W0RAA]

Hi everybody,

Well, it's that time of the year and I hope everybody is getting ready for 
the ARRL RTTY Roundup Contest on January 8 & 9.

I'd like to make a couple suggestions or so:

1.  Please DO NOT use CUT NUMBERS in the Contest!

2.  Send 599, NOT 5NN or TOO!
You're not saving any time with cut numbers and in RTTY they are totally not 
necessary.

3.  It's not necessary to send "Hi 'name', nice to hear u. Ur 599 in 
'state/prov'.  Everybody knows their own name.  I know it's just a friendly 
gesture, but not necessary, and besides, you're wasting the time of the 
station you are communicating with at the time.  A simple TU 599 
'state/prov' is all that's needed.  (All you'll get from me when I send my 
report is "URCALL TU 599 CO CO de W0RAA".  Add ur own call or the other 
stations call at the end if you like.  I prefer to use my own call.  But 
again, probably not necessary.

These are just suggestions to hopefully speed things along in the contest. 
Being cordial is OK, but let's just do it after the contest.

Oops, I almost forgot...

4.  Be sure to send your cabrillo files to logs at supercheckpartial.com when 
you submit your score for the contest.  It gets your call in the data base 
for future contests.

Other than that, I hope to hear many of you again this year.  My beam came 
down in a fierce wind storm we had here in Colorado Springs on Dec. 3, 2010, 
so I'll be in the RTTY RU, just not as loud as I'd like to be.  I'll be 
using my Butternut HF-9V instead of the HyGain tri-bander.  I'm going to be 
putting up another tower and the hole is dug for it, but the nights have 
been cold here.  Waiting for a little warm-up to have the concrete poured. 
The beam will be a Cushcraft A3S and it will be on a Hazer2 Tram system for 
raising and lowering the beam & rotor.  My rotor, a Ham V was not damaged in 
the tower fall.  Thank Heavens for ARRL insurance.  I got a settlement from 
them within 2 weeks and only had a $50 deductible.  My homeowners insurance 
would have covered it, but the deductible would have been $1000.  Ouch.  I 
hope to have it up in time for the CQ WW WPX RTTY in February, with any 
cooperation at all from our weather gods.

See you all next weekend, I hope.  And good luck in the RTTY RU.

73,

Dick
W0RAA