[RTTY] MURPHY was with me and VK9DWX

[Kok Chen]

On Oct 25, 2008, at 10/25    7:30 AM, Dick White wrote:
>  I run AFSK into a RigBlaster plus. What had
> happened was the "Audio IN" plug had somehow pulled out of the  
> RigBlaster
> just after he came back to me and thus no TX.

That's a shame, Dick, knowing that it would have been a "sure  
thing."  Bad things can happen, not just to our end, but also the DX  
end too.

Since it is a kind of watershed of my DXing, I have marked in my log  
the Nov 1998 DXpedition to XZ1N.  Like others, I had been waiting for  
them to come up on RTTY.  While tuning around the band, I'd even  
worked ZD7DP a few minutes before the XZ for an unexpected "new one"  
on RTTY.

At about 2218z, I heard a weak carrier tuning up on 14082.  I waited  
for diddles (RIT'ed down 2.215 kc just in case) and sure enough,  
printed a solid "QRL de XZ1N."  Without waiting for a CQ, I pounce on  
it simplex and the op told me that I was the first RTTY contact for  
that particular dxpedition.  We even "ragchewed" for half a minute to  
wait for the feeding sharks to find the victim.  They eventually did,  
and the op went split before too long.

The op was a frequent contester and knew me by callsign (AA6TY), so  
all must be good, yes?

When I checked later, NIL.

I emailed the op upon his return and was told that his laptop had  
crashed after the first two dozen or so contacts and all early logs  
were lost.  He said to try getting a conformation anyway, so I sent  
in an RTTY card together with my CW and SSB contacts, with an  
explanation of what happened.  The other two were confirmed, but the  
RTTY one came back NIL from W1XT.

So, here was a classic "by the book" hard work to snarf a DX, no  
packet cluster and before the days we had software skimmers, the  
other op remembered he'd worked me. I knew I have worked him.  But,  
by the "rules" I did not work XZ1N on RTTY.

I analyzed that for a while and because of that incident, I no longer  
work DX for a confirmation card.

I no longer send QSL to DX, and I only occasionally get a "new" card  
from the buro, or get cards because I'd contributed to a expedition.   
Nowadays, I am just happy to make a contact.

But the process stops there.  I still try the hardest to make an RTTY  
contact and get no less excited when I make it.  I just no longer  
believe in the QSL card "system" to tell me if I had worked a station  
or not.

I have found that I am just as happy as before, just as interested in  
finding better methods to dig out the weak ones, and to boot, saved a  
lot of money by not having to send out cards and IRC/greenbacks.

As to connectors falling out, some of the higher end sound cards use  
XLR connectors, and some are combination XLR/TRS connectors which  
takes regular 1/4" phone jacks (TRS = tip ring sleeve).  I have  
always wondered why they would use such bulky connectors; surely one  
can provide a balanced input without such bulk.  Perhaps it is now  
partially explained by the fact that the pros just can't afford for  
their mic or instrumentation to be disconnected in the middle of a  
recording session.  The ST-8000 input is an XLR, too.  Can't have the  
connector fall out in the middle of a battle, eh? :-)

73
Chen, W7AY