[RTTY] More on Parody Island

[Don AA5AU]

Thanks to Jerry, NO2T, for finding out more the Parody Island saga and jogging my memory. The Parody Island DXpedition spoof was in response to the way RTTY DX'ers were treated during the first Ducie Island in March 2002 using the callsign VP6DI. This DXpedition was headed by Kan, JA1BK. It has always been known that Kan was not a RTTY operator nor was he a fan of the mode. RTTY operations were rare on DXpeditions headed by Kan.

I was fortunate enough to have made a RTTY contact with VP6DI in the one single RTTY session they did have. However, I was perturbed by the lack of RTTY from this "all time new one". Here is something Jerry had kept and shared with me today:

> I'm happy to report that I am organizing a DXpedition to a newly
> discovered island in the Gulf of Mexico called Parody Island.
> 
> This island meets all the requirements of the ARRL to become a
> new DXCC Entity and there is positive reaction that it will soon
> become a new Entity.
> 
> I will assemble a crew of 10 operators.  Of these operators, all will
> have RTTY experience.  We will operate all bands CW and RTTY
> and maybe, just maybe SSB.  Since the team leader (me) does not
> like SSB, we will bring along 2 experienced DXpediton SSB operators
> but will not allow them to operate SSB.
> 
> We will have one station dedicated to RTTY 24 hours a day around the
> clock on 21080 kHz.  We will operate RTTY on all WARC bands and
> 160M.
> 
> This DXpedition will take place over a period of 11 days, perhaps as
> early as February 2003 after the closing of Duck Season.  We will operate
> Multi-Multi in the CQ/RJ WPX RTTY contest.
> 
> We will have 3 pilot stations.  One will be Barry, W2UP, who will be
> instructed to tell those inquiring, that SSB will start on a certain date.  Of
> course, we will not operate SSB on that date.  Instead we will operate RTTY
> and CW on 20 meters listening all the way up to 14300 khz.
> 
> A day or two after this announcement and no show on SSB, we will
> instruct Barry to tell the SSB masses that we are having problems with
> the only microphone we brought with us (this, of course, will not be true
> because we snuck in an SSB QSO with 2 of our friends).
> 
> Then on the 3rd to last day of the DXpedition, we will have Barry announce
> on our website that there might, repeat might, be SSB on 20M the next day.
> We will start on RTTY on 20M and at no set time, move to SSB, where we
> will work 10 hours of SSB.  We will then have Barry put out that there will be
> no more SSB operation.
> 
> Please stayed tuned for more details as they emerge.
> 
> 73, Don AA5AU
> Team Leader
> 2003 Parody Island DXpedition