[RTTY] An open letter to AA5AU

[Don Hill AA5AU]

Marc, thank you very much for the positive feedback and congratulations on your RTTY contest successes.

It seems the tutorials "Getting Started on RTTY" and "WriteLog RTTY Starter" have helped hundreds become successful RTTY operators
and contesters.  And for this I am very proud.  I have no real numbers to support this claim other than the fact that I receive on
average 2-3 e-mails each day from people looking for help, advice or with general questions on RTTY and RTTY contesting.  Since I
wrote the tutorials some 8 years or so ago, that would be close to 800 people that I know of and then there are those I don't know
of.  The rtty page on aa5au.com combined with the pages on rttycontesting.com have compiled over a half million hits combined.
Again, I have no real numbers because all the counters were reset some years ago when Yahoo dropped their Geocities branded sites.
The rttycontesting.com home page has received 247,840 hits since the counters were reset a few years ago.  The site is averaging
around 12k hits a month since December '09 with a peak of nearly 15k hits in February 2010.  I would have thought that at some time
the site activity would level out and decline but as the popular saying goes "The hits keep on coming".

I get a great deal of satisfaction from helping others through the websites, e-mail reflectors, personal e-mail and the NCJ RTTY
Contesting column.  After receiving overwhelming support from the RTTY community after Hurricanes Katrina and Gustav, I feel even
more strongly of my need to "give back".  I vow to continue to be an ambassador to our mode and radio sport.

It would be OK to me if I never won another RTTY contest, but it would kill me if I didn't have the chance to help a fellow operator
gain the joys of RTTY and RTTY contesting that I have felt over the past 25 years.

73, Don AA5AU
http://www.aa5au.com
http://www.rttycontesting.com 

-----Original Message-----
From: rtty-bounces at contesting.com [mailto:rtty-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of Chicoine, Marc
Sent: Tuesday, May 11, 2010 7:45 AM
To: rtty at contesting.com
Subject: [RTTY] An open letter to AA5AU

An open letter to Don AA5AU:

Don,

I just found out that I took first place low power Asia in the 2009 CQ WW RTTY contest under my Israeli callsign 4Z8BB.
Finally this is the first "piece of wood" (plaque) I've ever earned for a contest.

Part of my success I attribute to your on-line tutorial on your website "rttycontesting.com"

I work for Uncle Sam and I was on a two year assignment to Israel starting in January 2008.  In early 2008 I had setup a station in
Israel and thought it would be good to start RTTY contesting again.  I had an old PK-232 with old software that I dusted off and
quickly realized that I needed to upgrade so I researched the web and came across your website.  Thanks to your RTTY tutorial I
quickly got on board with WriteLog and a homemade interface for my Orion II.  I entered many RTTY contests and quickly earned RTTY
DXCC and RTTY WAS. I was also 2nd place Asia in the  CQWW RTTY WPX contest.
The pièce de résistance was winning the 2009 CQ WW RTTY (1st place Asia, low power).

Thanks again for your tutorial and for your various published articles on RTTY and RTTY contesting.



Marc E. Chicoine
DA1MC,  4Z8BB,  WC1X
Wiesbaden,  Germany


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