[RTTY] Macro for the upcoming DL-DX contest

[Bill Turner]

The title for this weekend's RTTY contest is the DL-DX contest. I
believe however, that the hyphen should not be used in your CQ macro
because it requires a FIGS character before the hyphen and a LTRS
character after, using an extra 167 milliseconds each, or about 1/3 of
a second for both.

Instead of 

CQ DL-DX DE <YOURCALL>

use

CQ DL DX DE <YOURCALL>

It looks like the same number of characters, but it is not. There is a
non-printing FiGS character before the hyphen and a LTRS
character after. Those milliseconds add up. If you call CQ 2000 times
during the 24-hour contest (a not unreasonable number), you will save
over 11 minutes, enough to make a few more QSOs and trounce your
buddy across town and take first place! :-)

If you're feeling a bit skeptical about this, try an experiment:

Make a CQ macro with the hyphen and one without. Using a stopwatch or
some kind of timer. send the macro ten times in a row with no breaks
and time how long it takes, then divide by ten to see how long one CQ
takes. Doing it ten times gives better accuracy than trying to time a
single CQ. Then do it again with the other macro. You will find the
hyphened macro takes almost exactly three seconds longer to sent it
ten times, or .333 seconds per CQ. In my case, the non-hyphenated
macro took 49 seconds for ten and the hyphenated one took 52, a
difference of three. Use a timer with tenths of a second if you have
one. 

Good luck to all, see you in the contest.

73, Bill W6WRT
Who finally has his 20/15/10 meter beam up! Yay!!!

p.s. Those of you not members of the RTTY reflector are cordially
invited to join. Go to www.contesting.com, scroll down on the left to
RTTY, click and follow the instructions. You'll find a great bunch of
knowledgeable, helpful ops there.