[RTTY] Green Keys vs. PSK31 - One man's opinion

[Ian White, G3SEK]

Larry L Lindblom wrote:
>As for me I seldom rag chew on RTTY because of my very poor typing. 
>Ever since a stroke 8 years back the fingers on my left hand do not 
>seem always to hit the same keys my brain is telling them to press.  So 
>for me it is mostly F1, F2, etc in the contests.  Even then I sometimes 
>embarrass my self  by punching the wrong F key:-(

Donworryboudit. I'm a professional technical writer, but I'm a lousy 
t6pist too.

The difference between PSK and RTTY operating seems to be a 'cultural' 
thing. Lots of PSK operators are not into DXing and contesting, but into 
slow-paced ragchewing involving very long exchanges of buffers. A 
significant number have a strong and active dislike of what they call 
'rubber-stamp' contacts... which are what most RTTYers would praise as 
'slick operating'.

In a mixed-digital-mode contest, you can be pretty certain that any RTTY 
signals you hear are in the contest, and your QSOs will be quick and 
slick. But it can be a serious mistake to answer a CQ on PSK,  because 
the guy is more than likely to be looking for a long ragchew. He may 
indeed be 'clueless' about the fact that there's a contest going on; or 
he may even be actively against making a snappy QSO.

Whatever you do then, you're in trouble. Either you're trapped for 15 
minutes, or else you're going to confirm his probable belief that 
contesters are brusque and rude.

It's a sad situation. One thing that would really help in the crossover 
is if PSK software like Digipan were available as a plug-in for 
dedicated contesting software, in the same way that MMTTY is for RTTY.


-- 
73 from Ian G3SEK
http://www.ifwtech.co.uk/g3sek