[RTTY] MMTTY tail

[Joe Subich, W4TV]

Jim, 

> This "tail" message made me remember another problem I saw 
> during the contest.  Several stations had the last letter or 
> two of the end of their transmission cut off!  This makes it 
> hard to copy a callsign at the end of an exchange.  I had to 
> wait for some folks to start CQing, hoping they would send 
> thier call twice, to pick it up correctly.

This can also be a symptom of an incorrect buffer setting in 
a traditional UART based serial port.  Some software just 
"dumps" the message to the UART and then drops PTT after an 
arbitrary (short) delay.  Unfortunately, the newer UARTs have 
much larger buffers than the earlier ones and there are often 
characters still in the buffer when the PT is dropped. 

First thing to do is open Windows Device Manager, select the 
serial port | Port Settings | Advanced and uncheck "Use FIFO 
buffers" or set the Transmit Buffer size to "Low" (1). 

The other thing is to always end a macro with two or three 
spaces! 

73, 

   ... Joe, W4TV 
  



> -----Original Message-----
> From: rtty-bounces at contesting.com 
> [mailto:rtty-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of Jim Reisert AD1C
> Sent: Tuesday, September 29, 2009 7:15 PM
> To: RTTY Reflector
> Subject: Re: [RTTY] MMTTY tail
> 
> 
> This "tail" message made me remember another problem I saw 
> during the contest.  Several stations had the last letter or 
> two of the end of their transmission cut off!  This makes it 
> hard to copy a callsign at the end of an exchange.  I had to 
> wait for some folks to start CQing, hoping they would send 
> thier call twice, to pick it up correctly.
> 
> PLEASE don't end a RTTY buffer abruptly!  As has been 
> mentioned on this list, carriage-return at the start, blank 
> space at the end, for EVERY message buffer.  That will keep 
> your amp engaged long enough to get the final stuff out.
> 
> 73 - Jim AD1C
> 
> -- 
> Jim Reisert AD1C, <jjreisert at alum.mit.edu>, 
> http://www.ad1c.us _______________________________________________
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