[RTTY] Rude contesters

[Bill, W6WRT]

ORIGINAL MESSAGE: 
On Wed, 3 Oct 2012 19:43:39 -0700, WU6W wrote:

>
>You guys just answered a question I have had -- how do some guys, not too
>many but one or two, answer my CQ's W-A-Y off frequency.. Like in this day
>and age of digital !! Yea - 40 years ago it was easy to do !
>I run FSK, so they must be running AFSK or on the wrong sideband or both ???
>They are so far off the only reason I look for them is the timing of the off
>freq signal - I figure it's got to be a reply and sure enough, there they
>are. One day I suspect I'll run out of RIT !
>
>Rick - WU6W

REPLY: 
One of the major causes of off-frequency stations is misuse of AFC. A common
scenario is this:  The S&P station is running FSK but has AFC on. As he tunes
across the band and gets near the CQ station, his AFC "reaches out" and locks in
the CQ station. Since his tuning indicator now shows proper tuning, he stops
turning the VFO knob. The problem is, his TX freq is NOT locked in and is still
lagging behind. 

Another contributing factor when using MMTTY is failing to reset the tones to
default when turning AFC off. If you watch MMTTY's tone frequency with AFC on
but no signal being received, you will see it wander around several Hz. If you
simply turn off AFC and the tones have wandered off the default, that's where
they stay. The point is, when turning AFC off you MUST ALSO click the "HAM"
button to reset the tones. If you are running N1MM logger, there are check boxes
in the DI setup that can do this for you automatically. 

73, Bill W6WRT