[RTTY] Dashes in Contest Reports

[Bill]

My head hurts...
Bill W2CQ



Jim Reisert AD1C wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 26, 2010 at 1:43 PM, Bill, W6WRT <dezrat1242 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>   
>> What Chen ignores is the case where the FIGS shift character before
>> the 599 is lost or garbled. When that happens and the dash is present,
>> the receiving station will print TOOAE. If the dash were NOT present
>> and USOS was enabled as it should be, under the same conditions  the
>> receiving station would print TOO 3.
>>
>> So which is better, TOOAE or TOO 3? To me, the choice is obvious.
>>     
>
> Bill, what you don't seem to get, and which Chen has argued in the
> past, is that the error WILL NOT necessarily occur on the first FIGS.
> Your solution is to transmit MORE FIGS/LTRS characters, all of which
> have as likely a chance of being corrupted as the first one.
>
> MTBF, or mean time between/before failure, is a fixed quantity.  When
> you INCREASE the number of transmitted characters, the MTBF stays the
> same, but the likelihood of experiencing a failure INCREASES.
>
> I'm with Chen on this one.  Send the MINIMUM number of characters
> required, and you'll minimize the absolute number of errors.
>
> 73 - Jim AD1C
>
>