[RTTY] QTC for WAE

[Ekki Plicht]

Am Do November 6 2003 09:16 schrieb David Kearns:
> As a newbie to RTTY contesting (1 year), can someone
> give me a simple explanation of what is and what is
> required for the QTC element of a RTTY contest.

Basically a QTC is a line of your contest log, which you send to somebody else 
in the contest, or receive from somebody else (from his or her log of 
course). A QTC contains the time of QSO (in UT), the call, and the exchange 
received from that call (just serial, no RST).

Each log entry may be sent to another station as a QTC only once. So if you 
have made ten QSOs, you are allowed to send these ten log entries as QTCs to 
the eleventh (or any later) QSO partner. After that exchange these first ten 
QSOs can not be used for further QTC traffic. But you can receive as many 
QTCs as you like.

The maximum number of QTCs you can exchange with a given station is 10. That 
QTC traffic can happen all at once (all ten at the same time) or you can 
exchange smaller numbers of QTC during the contest, but only up to 10 max.

During contest you announce that you have QTCs to send or you ask if the other 
station has QTCs for you. The format of this bidding is not standardized, you 
will see people saying "i have 10 QTC QRV?" or similiar. If you are ready you 
answer with "QRV de G0HVS" or "QRV QTC" or similiar.
Or you ask "do you have QTC?", then the other might answer "i have 5 QTC" and 
waits for your "QRV" to start the QTC traffic.
Check your software how to do this... most up to date programs should support 
you in sending and receiving QTC traffic. I use RCKrtty which is fairly good 
at that. Writelog and others do equally well.

Why should you bother at all with QTCs? Because each successful exchange of a 
QTC counts one point, both for the sender _and_ the receiver. QTC traffic is 
a key to winning the WAEDC contest. There is no other way to make ten points 
in such a relatively short time.

Here is an example of how QTC traffic might look like in RTTY:
In (brackets) the call of the stn transmitting...

(g0vhs) CQ DE G0VHS
(df4or) DE DF4OR DF4OR
(g0vhs) DF4OR 599-042-042
(df4or) G0VHS 599-023-023 I HAVE QTC
(g0vhs) DF4OR QRV QTC
(df4or) G0VHS I HAVE 5 QTC FOR YOU. QRV?
(g0vhs) QRV
(df4or) 0002 DL1ZBO 599001
(df4or) 0003 W1ZT  599005
(df4or) 0007 GU0SUP 599004
(df4or) 0011 W7AY 599004
(df4or) 0015 AA5AU 599033
(df4or) G0VHS DE DF4OR QSL?
(g0vhs) QSL TU NOW CQ WAEDC DE G0VHS
and so on.

If you missed one or more QTCs you can (and should) ask for repetiton:
...
(g0vhs) QRV
(df4or) 0002 DL1ZBO 599001
(df4or) 0003 W1ZT  599005
(df4or) 0007 GU0SUP 599004
(df4or) 0011 W7AY 599004
(df4or) 0015 AA5AU 599033
(df4or) G0VHS de DF4OR QSL?
(g0vhs) RPT QTC 4 RPT QTC 4
(df4or) 0011 W7AY 599004
(df4or) G0VHS DE DF4OR QSL?
(g0vhs) QSL TU NOW CQ...

or you could ask for a sequence to repeated
(g0vhs) RPT QTC 3 to 5 RPT QTC 3 to 5
or all
(g0vhs) RPT ALL QTC RPT ALL QTC

Some programs precede each QTC with a sequence number in that group. It might 
look like
(df4or) 1/5 0002 DL1ZBO 599001
(df4or) 2/5 0003 W1ZT  599005
(df4or) 3/5 0007 GU0SUP 599004
meaning QTC one of five, QTC two of five etc.

Again, check your software.


I am sure I have missed an important point. Don't miss to check the rules at
http://www.darc.de/referate/dx/xedcwr.htm

73 and hope to see u in the WAEDC
Ekki, DF4OR