[RTTY] Contesting w/ 2 Tone & MMTTY

[Mike]

2 Tone was used along with MMTTY in the recent EA RTTY Contest.  What a
difference having two different decoders working
on the same signal.  Most of the time, both displayed the same
information.  However, there
were enough differences to having both decoders a true benefit.  Which one
was better -
depends.  But then that is to be expected as both are very good.

The MMTTY kept in the FIR filter, with 400 Bandpass.  AFC was turned off
and receive mark freq.
set to 2125. 2 Tone was kept in Main and Normal throughout the Contest.

One feature of 2 Tone is the AFC is turned on all the time.  Since most of
my operating is
"Run", I wanted to see if the 2 Tone all the time AFC on would impact being
able lock on
the calling station before he would quit transmitting.  The call of several
calling stations
weren't copied before the other stations' transmission stopped.
Fortunately, this wasn't as
much of an issue as I had envisioned when first started using 2 Tone
earlier in the week.
MMTTY helped overcome the initial 2 Tone's loss of copying the other
station.

Over all, 2 Tone may be a bit better, but that is a subjective judgement.
2 Tone seemed
to handle the weak signals better, while MMTTY seemed to decode a bit
faster than 2 Tone.
Yes, in most instances MMTTY and 2 Tone compliment each other making it
possible to get
the correct information from the other station without asking for a
repeat.

2 Tone was the xmitting S/W and MMTTY used for the "Receive Only" clone
window in Writelog.
With this S/W arrangement, function key characters would be displayed in
Writelog's Rttyrite
window in clumps - three characters immediately displayed when the function
key was pushed,
followed by a delay and then a rapid display of another three characters,
etc.  However,
the "clumping" wasn't noticed in the xmission when listen on the monitor.
"Hardware
generated FSK" was used.  Tried "Software generated FSK TXD" and "Software
generated
FSK DTR" but neither would key the FSK.

I plan on using both decoders as set up for future contests.  Eliminating
the "clumping" function key characters is next issue need to work solving
at this station.  Getting "Software generated...." capability working may
be the answer.  (Also have to work on getting RF out of the computer, but
that was a problem before 2 Tone:>)

One other annoyance was the xmitted characters were only displayed on the
xmitting Rttyrite window, 2 Tone, and not displayed on the clone window,
MMTTY.  This may be a Writelog set-up issue on my part rather than a S/W
issue.

Thanks to all who took the time to write up how  to get 2 Tone set-up in
Writelog and share it with us on the Internet.

  73,
  Mike, K4GMH