[RTTY] My test results

[WI8W]

Thanks to all who replied.  As usual,  I get a lot of information, tips and
friendly responses anytime I post something to the list.  Yes I am a
beginner but learning more and more every day about RTTY.

Thanks to Don AA5AU for his great website.  Don, I poked my head in the RTTY
SO2R Contesting Forum you did at Dayton this year and while I am a long way
from SO2R,  I  was real impressed with the presentation and your talk gave
me the push I needed to take this mode more seriously.

I have managed a few RTTYcontacts on the bands But I have learned that I
must now get serious abiut installing some serious antennas.  A G5RV and a
tuned loop are just not great DX antennas.

As for the tests, I set up my PK-232 on my spare receiver.  This receiver
has it's own antenna out in the back yard. The 232 is connected to the shack
laptop running Hyperterminal for the test

I figured from some of the responses I got that something must be wrong with
my configuration of MMTTY so I deleted the copy installed and downloaded and
installed a fresh copy.  What a difference that made to the performance of
MMTTY.

There were several strong and weak RTTY signals on the 20 meter band tonight
and both terminals copied fairly strong signals very well.  MMTTY however
copied the weak signals the 232 did not even know was there.

Right now Im copying PY2YU on 14087.68 and he is 100% copy.  There is some
noise on the band but the narrow filters in the radio makes that tolerable.

I think based on my test and the comments I have read that the software
angle is the way to go.

I did download a copy of WinWarbler and I will see how that works in the
near future.

One thing I do know is that the setup of my Yaesu FT-920 is very critical to
it's performance in the digital modes.  The Yaesu, as Don pointed out,  has
to have the passband set to the right offset to make the signal appear in
the passband of the crystal filters installed in the radio.  On my Yaesu the
passband is set to 2125 Hz which puts the signal right in the middle of my
installed INRAD filters.  The drawback is that it makes the radio unsuitable
for PSK unless you reset the offset to the 1100 hz setting that PSK uses.
This is done with a menu setting and not very convenient for rapid changes.
Maybe someone has a better way to set up this radio to make al digital modes
easy to use.

Thanks again to all.  Now I am going to AA5AU's website and learn a bit more
about MMTTY.

73

Thom WI8W