[RTTY] "Slashed" Zeros vs. the number "Zero"

Larry L Lindblom llindblom at juno.com
Sun Dec 19 13:11:19 EST 2004


What is comes down to is the vast majority of RTTY operators now use
computer generated, decoded and logged RTTY with MMTTY being the most
popular sound card program.  Also I would guess that  nearly 100 % of the
CW/SSB contesters use computer logging.  

The crux is that some of the slashed zero character do not use the
standard ASCII code for a zero.  Those character sets cause issues with
Cabrilo generated files which most contest  sponsors now require.  BTW,
if you are not already on that list you might want to subscribe to the
RTTY reflector, as there are many people on it far more in the technical
know than I have.  What follows is part of one response on the RTTY
reflector:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------- 73 W0ETC
I think what N1ND refers to are characters which look like zeros but 
are not.
 
Among these are the Set Theory symbol for the Empty Set (Unicode 
0x2205), the slashed O (slashed oh, not slashed zero) that I think is 
found in northern European font (in the Unicode position 0x00d8, whose 
official Unicode name is "Latin Capital letter O with stroke," with the 
lower case at Unicode 0x00f8), the Greek phi (Unicode 0x03a6), etc.
 
None of these are the same as the real zero which is ASCII 0x30 
(Unicode 0x0030), which in traditional designs are not slashed.  Odder 
still is that even when a zero displays as a slash in some font, it may 
not have the slash when you typologically (instead of geometrically) 
shrink the font -- the Monaco font is often designed this way.
 
73
Chen, W7AY

On Sat, 18 Dec 2004 00:31:24 EST Russmill47 at aol.com writes:
When did things change?  I'm just getting back to RTTY after a slight
break in service of 30 years.  My RTTY documentation shows that all
Amateur Teletype equipment is set up with slash 0 for the number zero. 
This was to differentiate from the letter 0.  

73,

Russ 
WA3FRP


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