[RTTY] Death of RTTY?

[Larry L Lindblom]

You have a point about the typing.  In my case a stroke 6 years ago means
maybe 25 WPM max and that includes errors.  It is almost too embarrassing
for me to get on RTTY except for macro mode e.g., (a contest or to bust a
pileup).

73 W0ETC

On Tue, 20 May 2003 23:07:20 +0000 Ekki Plicht <ep at plicht.de> writes:
> No no, RTTY ain't gonna die so soon. 
> 
> I welcome innovation and think it's absolutely necessary to maintain 
> and 
> promote ham radio in general. In times of ever declining activity 
> (any) we 
> should be glad of anything that raises activity. 
> In that sense (innovation) I will give PSK63 a try when I finally 
> have an 
> antenna at my new QTH. Nevertheless I will stick with RTTY. As 
> others have 
> already noted, it's parameters (speed, sound etc.) seem ideal for 
> contesting.
> 
> One problem has been pointed out often: the lack of activity between 
> contests. 
> Here PSK31 is a winner over RTTY. But why is that so?
> 
> During the past 2 years I had the opportunity to devote most of my 
> time to ham 
> radio. I often called CQ in RTTY when the bands were open. The 
> result were a 
> lot of Q's, but what kind of? 
> 
> Just "Hi, ur 599, <f2 macro>, <f3 macro>, QSLL, 73".
> 4 minutes a QSO max. Is that fun? No, not in my book.
> 
> Even when I tried to give the QSO a different twist, like asking for 
> specifics 
> of the antenna they mentioned in their brag tape^W^W^W^W macro or 
> telling my 
> age and trying to lure the QSO partner into something individual - 
> nothing 
> happened except a repetition of the last macro.
> 
> Ok, maybe most people are not vy fast at typing. I adjusted 
> (reduced) my 
> typing speed to 45.45 baud back when mechanical typewriters had a 
> one 
> character (mechanical) buffer, so for me it's no problem... or maybe 
> others 
> are not feeling well in chatting in english. But I think you could 
> expect at 
> least a small effort in acknowledging something individual in a QSO.
> 
> The same (lack of typing skills, lack of foreign language skills) 
> applies 
> probably to PSK31 as well. But PSK31 has the benefit of offering DX 
> even with 
> lowest power and small/invisible antennas. And that's important at 
> times 
> where it gets ever more difficult to to set up antennas in restricted 
> housing 
> areas. To my surprise that even applies to the USA, as I learned in 
> Dayton 
> this year. This benefit (low power, small antennas) cannot be 
> overcome by 
> RTTY, I think. 
> 
> Nevertheless RTTY is alive and well, and will be as long as a bunch 
> of crazies 
> like most of those subscribed to this list enjoy and use it :-)
> 
> 73,
> Ekki, DF4OR
> 
> 
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