[RTTY] RTTY Contest History

[Jay]

Just to clarify there were several Worldwide contests previous to the 
1987 CQWW RTTY Contest.  To include one by the RTTY Journal and 
co-sponsored by 73, and to include "The Giant Flash" contest which 
actually gave away Dovetron TU's to the winners which brought down the 
FCC as I understand the history from Hal Blegen WA7EGA now K7IRA.

The CQWW RTTY Contest was put together by Dale Sinner and CQ. Roy Gould 
KT1N now W1RY was also very instrumental in getting things in order with 
many aspects of this.  Roy was a writer for the RTTY Journal and was the 
first and long-time CQWW RTTY contest manager.  Roy, Hal, Betsy WV7Y my 
XYL and I traveled to and put on HC8 as HD9CQ for this event.  We were 
hosted by our long time friend HC5K.

This is the data that was prepared and released to the CQ Almanac in 
1994.  This information is herewith released by me into the public
domain.  I had copyright on all of these early records and on this 
article which included the records at that time.  I have previously released
the records to Don AA5AU.

Permission is granted to the CQ Almanac and Doug Grant, K1DG editor to 
include any
or all of the following in that publication.  The "All-Time CQWW RTTY 
records"
are the basis for an annual article from this author which is usually 
published
in the RTTY Journal now known as the Digital Journal.

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                    History of the CQWW RTTY Contest

In 1986 the publishers of the RTTY Journal and CQ announced that they 
were joining forces and
would be co-sponsoring the CQWW RTTY Contest.  Dale Sinner, at that time 
the new publisher of the RTTY Journal felt that an expansion of that 
magazine's old WW RTTY contest into the popular CQ format would be 
beneficial to both magazines.

In the Spring of 1987 both magazines announced the new rules. The fourth 
weekend in September was picked as the spot for the RTTY contest 
weekend.  In that first year a number of special contest Dxpeditions 
were put on which was a first on RTTY. The first event saw a very large 
turnout of contesters with wide spread support and enthusiasm.

RTTY had a long and rich history of contesting going back some number of 
years, but without a clear single big contest that was sustained 
year-after-year.  The majority of contests traditionally had been put on 
by various national organizations such as BARTG, CARTG, SARTG, ANARTS, 
WAE, and VOLTA. These represented British, Canadian, Scandinavia, 
Australia-New Zealand, Germany, and Italy. The U.S. had a number of 
different contests from time-to-time. There was always trouble with 
certificates and sponsorship in America.  The joining of CQ and the RTTY 
Journal ended the American problems and was the beginning of the 
"modern" era in RTTY contesting.

RTTY contests typically have two major differences from CW and SSB 
rules.  First, most RTTY
contests are fairly short. 24 to 30 hours is the rule. The continuous 
duty cycle of RTTY equipment is very stressful on gear and shorter 
periods are better. Secondly, North America has always had a different 
multiplier basis than most non digital contests. States/Provinces or 
call areas have always been multipliers. So the CQWW has 
States/Provinces, Zones, and Countries all as  multipliers. The CQ 3-2-1 
point multiplier was kept intact to keep foreign interest high and to 
make Dxpeditions a part of the contest.

There were about 300 logs submitted for the 1987 CQWW. The only problem 
that surfaced was that 160 meters was found to be essentially unusable 
by the digital stations.  In later years this band was dropped.  The 
first few years of the contest there was only a Multi-single category 
and Multi-Multi was later added. In keeping with the other CQ contests 
Single Operator Assisted was added. After the huge popularity of the low 
power class of 150 watts in the ARRL's RTTY Roundup this class was also 
included in subsequent years in CQWW RTTY.

Long time CQWW RTTY contest manager, Roy Gould, KT1N, added Ron Stailey, 
AB5KD as his assistant mangager in 1995. The log's have grown over the 
years and the additional help will make sure things stay well organized 
and well done.

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