[RTTY] RTTY Sprint

[Ed Muns]

Jamie, WW3S, wrote:
>Actually QSY tells me the station I'm hearing is leaving the 
> freq....its only one more letter than TU and the same as 
> RRR....When I'm tuning, and only hear one side of the QSO, 
> when I hear QSY, I keep tuning....

On all three modes, the informal Sprint format for years has been:

CQ WW3S WW3S NA
W0YK
W0YK WW3S 23 JAMIE PA
WW3S 14 ED CA W0YK
R

Placing your call sign at the end of your exchange is the conventional
Sprint signal that you are staying on the frequency.  There is no need for
the other station to send 'QSY' to signal that he is leaving the frequency.
It just takes more time and is redundant.  There's no reason for RTTY to be
different.  Whenever you hear a call sign at the end of a transmission
followed by a 'R' or 'TU' from another station, you can be pretty sure when
and who to call.  If there is no 'TU', then either the other station
neglected to send it or the station transmitting their call sign was really
sending a general CQ.  In either case, it is your clue to call them if you
want.

However, the more important point of this thread is that the exiting station
only needs to acknowledge the exchange and that doesn't require more than a
couple characters on CW or RTTY and a quick 'thanks' on SSB.   Sending
something longer like 'W0YK TU NOW QSY' is just slowing things down and
potentially adding QRM to the frequency.

Ed - W0YK