[RTTY] RTTY RU tips

[Bill Turner]

ORIGINAL MESSAGE:

On Thu, 4 Jan 2007 16:13:11 -0800 (PST), Jim Reisert AD1C
 <jjreisert at alum.mit.edu> wrote:

> 3.  (DX) Separate numbers with hyphens and/or spaces

------------ REPLY FOLLOWS ------------

Lots of good advice there Jim, but I have to disagree with this one.

Hyphens defeat the Unshift On Space feature (USOS) and over the course
of a contest will result in unnecessary requests for repeats. 

The practice of using hyphens came from the original RTTY contesting
program, RTTY by WF1B. Ray, bless his heart, put hyphens in his sample
macros without realizing the consequences of USOS and they have been
with us ever since. 

While it is true that hyphens speed up the transmission speed, they do
it by not sending the needed LTRS shift character between character
groups. This often leads to an entire exchange being received with
FIGS shift instead of LTRS, and the consequent request for a repeat. 

Don't believe it? Try half a contest with hyphens and half without and
observe the difference. You will become a believer.

73, Bill W6WRT