[RTTY] RTTY Growth

[Jerry Flanders]

I was operating RTTY from maybe '72 and never had any problem finding 
somebody on the bands, so I would have guessed there was more activity than 
that. Probably not much contesting. Lots of picture files flying around, 
though.

IIRC, we were not allowed to use FSK until just a few years prior. RTTY 
didn't work well with on-off mark keying only.

We had our first computer RTTY equipment right away as soon as the personal 
computer came out - I had the Ham card (provided CW and RTTY) for my 
Digital Group Z-80 machine around '76-77. Primitive stuff, but it worked.

Jerry W4UK

At 01:47 2/14/2005, you wrote:
>Hello,
>
>Back in 1976, Ed, W3EKT, and I put together a paper for the 1976 ARRL DX 
>Technical Symposium titled "Some Comments on RTTY DXing".   In it we 
>estimated that less than 1 percent of the amateur population had RTTY 
>capability.  We figured the US had 1000 amateurs with RTTY capability and 
>Canada 300,  Only 200 of this number operated on 20 meters (2 meter RTTY 
>was popular then) and 50 to 75 pursued DX.  The paper included an estimate 
>of the world RTTY population along with information on the equipment 
>needed to be competitive in chasing RTTY DX, finding the RTTY DX (wasn't 
>much available) and RTTY contesting.  Interesting to see how RTTY DXing 
>and contesting has grown since then.
>
>The ubiquitous personal computer gets my vote for spurring the growth of RTTY.
>
>By the way, in 1975, Ed, W3EKT, won the world RTTY championship which was 
>based on the your scoring in six contests.  (Guess who was second?)
>
>         73,
>         Mike, K4GMH