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

[Richard Ferch]

Ian White wrote:

>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'.

Agreed, there certainly is a cultural element. In fact, there are several. 
Besides the above, there is also a strong feeling among many PSK operators 
that it is a QRP-only activity. Anyone using high power is likely to be 
criticized because his signal will capture the AGC of anyone whose 
bandwidth he is inside, and many PSK operators use only SSB (2.7 kHz) 
filters in order to be able to copy the entire PSK sub-band at once.

Most contesters and DXers recognize this as a problem to be overcome at the 
receiver, not at the transmitter. I don't see anyone complaining about the 
use of high power on CW, because it's taken for granted that signals of 
widely varying strengths can be found in close frequency proximity, and 
receiving techniques are adjusted accordingly. I think a lot of PSK 
operators do not have this CW DXing and contesting experience, though.

There is also an incomplete appreciation in the PSK community of the 
relationship between power and distortion products. Because it is true that 
if you increase the mike gain too far when running PSK you can transmit IMD 
products, a lot of PSK operators associate higher power with higher IMD and 
assume that QRO necessarily means wide signals. This is compounded by a 
lack of recognition that IMD can be generated within an overloaded 
receiving system.

Nevertheless, there is a contesting sub-culture within the PSK culture. The 
070 club, TARA, and some other groups sponsor PSK contests which have 
become regular fixtures on the calendar. These are pretty laid-back affairs 
by RTTY contest standards, but there are a few PSKers out there making 
200-300 QSOs in a 24-hour period during these contests, limited mostly by a 
lack of new stations to work in the contest.

Talking about culture, though, there is another side to this. PSK31, even 
when carried out using the same message buffers, feels slow to an RTTY op, 
because it actually is slower. It is simply not possible to keep up the 
same QSO rate because the basic data rate is slower. However, there is a 
double-speed variant, PSK63, that is both faster and narrower than standard 
ham radio RTTY. Looked at on a purely technical basis, it would seem that 
PSK63 might actually be competitive with RTTY for contesting. Why hasn't 
PSK63 taken over from RTTY, or even made an impression, especially 
considering that you don't need any special hardware to do it and at least 
some contesting software supports PSK31/63 directly? Well, that is also 
partly a cultural thing, isn't it?...

73,
Rich VE3IAY


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