[RTTY] FD RTTY Question

[Dick Kriss]

On Jun 26, 2012, at 12:34 PM, rtty-request at contesting.com wrote:

> Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2012 06:35:48 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Adrian Engele <aa5uk at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: [RTTY] FD RTTY Question
> 
> Here at the K9MOT FD site we tried RTTY for the first time and we found the rates were decent. 
> 
> Good enough were we S&P'ed for a while then switched to SSB and then CW; then back to RTTY. This kept a decent rate going at times.? 
> 
> RTTY was productive enough that we did not even try PSK31. In my humble opinion PSK31 is too slow for contesting/FD. RTTY is much better suited for quick contacts. I printed many excellent operators on the air and requests for repeats were few.
> 
> Based on the post FD club feedback, RTTY will be back next year for our FD.
> 
> Hope everybody had a great time!? Mother nature blessed us with mild temperatures, fewer bugs and no rain!
> 
> 73, Adrian AA5UK for K9MOT (Motorola Solutions Radio club)

QSL on the comments about PSK-31 vs. RTTY.  I tried to use PSK-31 and it was just too slow and very frustrating where RTTY worked great. I noticed a big increase in the number of FD stations running RTTY this year and I think this is a good thing.

I learned something new doing an all digital FD regarding dup checks. I found one QSO with the same call on 14 MHz for both PSK-31 and RTTY. Most software logging programs (as well as the ARRL's LoTW) considers PSK-31 and RTTY as separate modes and will not show them as dup. The ARRL DXCC Desk now says if it is not CW or Phone, it is Digital.  We first saw the elimination of the RTTY DXCC by the ARRL DXCC Desk and now that administrative policy decision seems to be leaking over to contesting.

73 Dick AA5VU