[RTTY] Digital DXCC or ARRL Board of Directors, respectfully: have my strong disagreement

[Jeff Blaine]

Chen,

The issue to me is not about category.  It's about tradition.  Dropping RTTY in favor of a broader category of digital may be 
logical.  But it's not showing proper respect for the 3rd leg of a grand tradition.

RTTY has a history and distinct appeal not found in the mode-of-the-month mix of digital stuff.

I don't recall ST0R planning to run "digital" - they are running RTTY.  And that's the case with most.  CW.  SSB.  RTTY.  The 
cornerstone modes of the contest and DX tradition and market.  Been that way since SSB overtook AM as the phone mode of choice.

And from a business standpoint, I don't understand why the league would forgo the issuing of RTTY certs for DXCC.  It's all tracked 
by computer anyway and with the size of the RTTY community (growing RTTY community, that is more properly said), there is a lot of 
ARRL $ being lost in this decision as well.

73, Jeff ACØC
www.ac0c.com

-----Original Message----- 
From: Kok Chen
Sent: Tuesday, August 02, 2011 8:12 PM
To: RTTY Reflector
Cc: Joe Subich, W4TV
Subject: Re: [RTTY] Digital DXCC or ARRL Board of Directors, respectfully: have my strong disagreement


On Aug 2, 2011, at 5:07 PM, Joe Subich, W4TV wrote:

> Remember, "Phone" includes AM,
> SSB. FM, SSTV, DV and FSTV.

Precisely.

"Phone" appears to be the euphemism for all modes that encode non-textual information (speech, pictures, etc).

"CW" is distinct from "Phone" because it represents textual information, but is meant for non-textual (usually aural) decoding.

The remaining group (what W9OL very correctly pointed out as "not CW nor Phone") are the "digital modes," which also encodes textual 
information and but unlike "CW," they are decoded by machine back into textual information.

You can call this last group anything you like.  But to call it "RTTY" is plain wrong, since most of the "not CW nor Phone" 
transmissions today are not even made in RTTY any more.

73
Chen, W7AY

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