[RTTY] Hyphens ( was Contesting too long?)

[Bill Turner]

The hyphen is a mixed bag. Back in the early days of RTTY contesting, 
someone figured out that putting hyphens between the elements of an 
exchange speeded up the transmission. You can try it yourself: send 
599-03-03 vs 599 03 03 and you'll see the hyphened version goes faster. 
Why? Because of a thing called Un Shift On Space, or USOS. Without going 
into mind-numbing detail, USOS re-synchronizes the transmitter and 
receiver when their FIGS shift gets out of sync because of a missing 
FIGS character caused by QRM, QRN, fading or whatever. With USOS, every 
time the transmitter sends a space character, both the transmitter and 
receiver reset themselves back to LTRS case before sending the next 
character. Putting hyphens between the elements defeats USOS because 
there is no space. This is why you see things like TOOAWTAWT from our JA 
friends for example. What they are actually sending is 599-25-25 (25 
being their CQ zone).  What has ahppened is the FIGS character got lost 
before the 599 and your receiver remains in LTRS shift for the entire 
transmission and therefore prints only letters instead of numbers.

If he were to send 599 25 25 instead, you would print TOO 25 25 because 
USOS restored the correct shift at your end. It's true that eliminating 
hyphens does take longer to transmit, but the number of requests for 
repeats goes down significantly. Experienced ops recognize TOOAWT and 
will type in the exchange manually, but the possibility for mistakes is 
always there.

Like I said it's a mixed bag but my expreieince over many, many contests 
is the hyphen wastes more time than it saves. Others will disagree, but 
over the years I have observed a gradual shift away from hyphens. Usage 
used to be near 100% and now it's  down to only a few percent. 
Apparently others have reached the same conclusion as I have. The debate 
will probably continue because there is just no way to prove it once and 
for all. You will have to draw your own conclusions from your own 
experience.

Thanks for bearing with me on this. This is the kind of thing your mind 
starts thinking about in the wee hours of the morning on 40 meters when 
you are calling CQ over and over and over with no takers. :-)

73, Bill W6WRT



On 10/18/2011 12:42 PM, Ken Anderson, N0AS wrote:
> I sometimes use hyphens between numbers, e.g., 599-599. Not a good idea?  Or is the hyphen thing something else?
>
> Ken
> Amateur Radio Callsign: N0AS
>