[RTTY] More on the KH6ZM mystery

Kok Chen chen at mac.com
Tue Jan 11 19:22:04 PST 2011


OK, I took the sound file that Alex K2BB graciously emailed to me and ran it through my modem and I got this

> DRAOO 1166 1K?? K2BB
> K2BB 599 1166 173 DE K2BB TU NJ NJ BK2BB  U DE KH6ZN

Not the KH6M that people seem to print, but KH6ZN.

On a hunch that he was cutting off his transmitter too early and chopping off the very last bit just before the stop bit (the difference between a Baudot N and a Baudot M), I increased the receive baud rate and sure enough, I printed KH6ZM at 48 baud -- indicating that at least part of that last bit of M was perhaps transmitted.

He could loose many points because of this.  Pity.  For a different reason, I always add a space at the end of my exchanges (yeah, I can hear the millisecond counters grumbling in the background) which could have sidestepped early cutoff problems too.  But again, this could be something very different.

I received #272 from my first QSO with KH6ZM and another for #719, both well before Alex' 1166, so I should have noticed a discrepancy too (I look out for those things, contests don't interest me, RTTY signal do :-), but I didn't see any problem from the left coast here.  I printed ZM when I worked him and each time that I clicked on his signal.  Odd, eh?

73
Chen, W7AY



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