[RTTY] [CQ-Contest] RTTY contest software

[Ian White GM3SEK]

J. Edward (Ed) Muns wrote:
>
>If I could have only one decoder, it would be MMTTY.  But, it is easy 
>enough to run the DXP-38 simultaneously, so I do that "just in case". 
>I suspect that running three MMTTY decoder windows (Standard, Flutter 
>and Multi-Path profiles) would be just as good, maybe better, than the 
>Hal DXP-38 ... if I could just figure out how to keep all three windows 
>running reliably.  In 2005, multiple MMTTY windows worked great for me, 
>but not this year for some reason.
>
With the FT-1000MP I normally operate SO2V with a different MMTTY 
profile on each RX. When running, both the main RX and the sub-RX are on 
the same frequency, with the N1MM DI windows right next to each other so 
it's easy to compare outputs.

As Ed and many other people have found, all decent decoders give the 
same copy most of the time. If the main enemy is QSB, I usually find 
that either there's copy from both decoders or from neither. 
Occasionally one decoder will briefly give better copy than the other 
for no understandable reason... "just statistics", I guess.

(As a side-thought, I'm not sure how much importance we should attach to 
those odd occasions. Maybe we tend to over-emphasize them, because they 
stick in the mind?)

However, there are some sessions when one profile gives consistently 
better results. For example, if there's aurora about, the long E-W paths 
from here are quite badly affected, and then MMTTY's "flutter/FIR" 
profile seems consistently better than the regular profile. If the main 
RX doesn't have the best profile, I move it over to there, and use the 
sub-RX to experiment with something else.

Remember that you're not restricted to MMTTY's pre-configured profiles - 
at best, those can only be Makito-san's recommended starting points for 
further tweaking. It's very simple to save and re-load complete "user 
profiles".

That setup seems able to copy at least as well as anyone else, so there 
isn't a huge incentive to upgrade. With so many different options to 
play with in MMTTY (and I still haven't got around to looping the audio 
DSP box into the MP's sub-RX output) there hasn't been any incentive to 
look at hardware decoders.

Dedicated contesting software demands very tight integration, so the 
RTTY decoder really needs to be available as a simple plugin that can be 
completely "slaved' to the contesting software. (The problem with 
decoders that are part of some other program is that most of that 
program is unwanted, but it may cause conflicts over PC resources.) In 
that respect, the MMTTY plugin seems to be about the only choice 
available. Fortunately MMTTY is very, very good, but it would be nice to 
have a few more options.

For example, I'd really love to play with CocoaModem... but not enough 
to go out and buy a Mac :-)



-- 
73 from Ian GM3SEK