[RTTY] RTTY Growth

[Neal Campbell and Sarah Ferrell]

For sure, WF1B's software brought us into the big leagues, then 
Writelog, RITTY and MMTTY made software great enough that almost anyone 
can join with a few hours notice.

The other person who has brought this popularity on is Don, AA5AU. 
Never has one person tried so hard to recruit people that he could work 
in a contest!


On Feb 13, 2005, at 8:47 PM, Mike 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
>
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