[RTTY] Conditions and exchanges

[Phil Cooper]

Hi all, and especially to Raj and Shelby..........

Well, I guess we can all learn, and I will note the info from Shelby and
others that leaving the dashes out of the exchange can be a good idea.

Until JARTS this year, I have always been one of those who believed in the
dash betwixt the 599 and the number. I tried it in JARTS where I had to
resend the exchange, and the report always seemed to get through.

I also feel that if conditions warrant it, it is worth sending the serial
number (or age!) three times instead of just twice. On many occasions I got
the same as Raj - 599-61-62 and it is difficult to know which is right. I
have always preferred the first, but you never know!
I often change the report buffer 'on the fly' depending on conditions, and
JARTS was a case where it was best sent 3 times. Contrast this with CQWW,
which was fine with just the once for most of the time.

And as for the aurora, well, even 40m was suffering, and I can't do 80m, so
I just gave up.

For Raj, well I did try for a while, and I used a macro programmed into
MMTTY that sends my call 5 times, each on a new line, but even that didn't
do it. However, you were working W's, so I guess my puny signal didn't ride
over the big W signals.
Despite all the aurora, I did get KL7AC at 0800 on 15m, and at that time, I
couldn't work the JA's as I had multipath distortion. Yes! The signals from
JA were coming from both LP and SP, and despite sigs of S7 - S8, I couldn't
resolve anything for about an hour. A shame I can't use that as an excuse to
get a big beam.

Ah well, at least I wasn't the only one suffering from the wobbly signals of
the aurora! And oddly, for this one, I didn't hear many MFSK signals trying
to take over the bands, but those blasted Pactor stations certainly tried to
block me out on a few occasions when I tried a CQ. Such is life!

Here's looking forward to WAE, from someone who actually "likes" QTC traffic
(many thanks to my tutor on this - Eddie W6 stroke something).

Very best 73 to all, and see SOME of you in WAE
Phil GU0SUP