[RTTY] What does it take to finish in the top 10?

[Dave Hachadorian]

On RTTY, I think SO2R will increase your score by about 50 
percent.  It takes about $5k - $10k to get set up.
second radio $2k
second heavy duty rtty amp $2k
2 sets bandpass filters $1k
switches, band decoders, gizmos $1k
more antennas $2k

Actually doing SO2R on RTTY is not very hard.  The decoding is 
done by a machine, and a time history of the decoding is 
presented on the monitor screen, so everything is just a 
mouse-click away.

One of these days, in the not-too-distant future, someone is 
going to come up with a RTTY Skimmer, and the whole ballgame will 
change once again, at least in the assisted category.


Dave Hachadorian, K6LL
Yuma, Arizona

-----Original Message----- 
From: Al Kozakiewicz
Sent: Sunday, February 26, 2012 10:43 AM
To: RTTY reflector
Subject: [RTTY] What does it take to finish in the top 10?

I'm curious about the operating techniques part of RTTY 
contesting.

Forget, for a moment, about the DX contests where the station QTH 
and antennas can be a major contributor to score. The just ended 
NAQP is kind of a great leveler - low power, $20,000 antenna 
systems are not a tremendous advantage and there aren't too many 
rare multipliers.  I looked at Don AA5AU's QTH on Google 
satellite and it doesn't look like a world class contest station. 
A decent tower on a suburban lot - well within the resource 
limitations of many hams.

I put an honest 9 h0our effort in.  It would have been 10 except 
that it snowed here for the first time this winter and my planned 
2 hour break for dinner out with my wife turned into 3.  But, in 
my case, I doubt the extra hour would have made a huge 
difference.  I had a total of 429 QSO's and my best one hour rate 
was 69.

I did learn this time to be more aggressive in switching from run 
to S&P when the running QSO rate slowed down.

But what I really want to know is how many of the contesters who 
score north of 500 QSO's are running SO2R?  When I consolidate my 
2 QTH's this year, I will build SO2R capability, but I need to 
know how much is dependent on my ability and operating techniques 
and not station capabilities?

Al
AB2ZY
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