[RTTY] VOLTA IT9BLB SOSB20 High

[G. La Parola, IT9BLB]

My first VOLTA!
I had planned to join the SOAB category but, arrived
at my contest site, rain and wind prevented me in
setting up the wires for 40/80, so I decided to
run on the band with the better ready antenna: 20m.
Propagation was poor to USA and JA, several booming
signals from VK/ZL at the right long-path times but
only few stations active (ZL2AMI the first in log;
missed VK5GN).I spent most of the time working stations
within Europe as shown by the low score for number of
stations worked. The last 3 hours were a real pain:
calling and calling without answers and not better
in S&P.
Best DX: AL1G,CN8LI,HS0/G3NOM,KP4JRS,TF3AO,CX4AAJ.
Logged a lot of italian guys (same country!) not
good for the contest; first I tried to say someone
that our QSO wasn't walid: waste of time, too long!
So, I logged everyone: the software does the rest.
I'd like to see that rule eliminated, also in this
nice contest.
Thanks to the SSB and RTTY club of COMO and the A.R.I.
for their sponsorship and support and also to all of
the RTTY contesters who joined this event too.

An interesting technical note (probably stupid but
very useful to me):
I had in mind to use MMTTY, on a spare computer, to
make some "on the road" comparisons with my PK232,
splitting the RX audio.
Murphy was active: the sound card on the spare PC
decided to not help me: MTTY didn't work!
So, I decided to run MTTY on the same computer
used for the logging program (RCKRtty).
I reduced vertically the RCKRtty's window and put
the last 4 lines of the MMTTY RX's window just
visible at the bottom of the monitor.
The computer performed well with both the programs
running and I was able to play my comparative
session during the contest. It was amazing how
MTTY worked better on the 80% of the "hard" 
situations like strong QSB, long path fluttering
and ringing, heavy QRM; AFC is a real plus.
The old PK232 was always better or same in the
normal traffic with solid and clean signals: MMTTY
lost often several caracters on "easy" signals.
Such field-day configuration is not the best,
of course ( I wasn't able to use the nice tuning
scope because it's located in the upper part of 
the MMTTY window) but could be an empiric way to
make some easy tests.
-------------------------------------------------
         A. VOLTA DX Contest

Callsign         : IT9BLB
Loc./DXCC/Cont.  : NONE / I / EU
Category         : Single Operator / Single Band / 20m
Mode             : RTTY
Club Competition : Tikirriki Contest Club
Power            : HIGH   500 Watt
Contest Date     : 11.05.2002
Default Exchange : 599
Operating Time   : 23:21 h
Software         : RCKRtty V2.15

BAND  QSOs  Valid QSOs  Points  DXCC  Dis.
10       0        0         0     0     0
15       0        0         0     0     0
20     363      341      3283    55    23
40       0        0         0     0     0
80       0        0         0     0     0
------------------------------------------
       363      341      3283    55    23

Final Score: 3283 * (55 + 23 + 0) * 341 = 87321234

Equipment: FT1000-MP, AL-1500@4/500w
Antennas : 20M 5el. monoband @ 21mt.
Digital  : PC Thunderbird 900Mhz, 256Mb RAM,
           WIN98se, PK-232, RCKRtty V2.15 &
           MMTTY V1.61

73s,
"Joe" IT9BLB/KF6FBC/9H3DC/IH9P

http://www.ih9p.com/