[RTTY] More SARTG comments

[Frank Fallon]

I am a Writelog user.  Writelog told me that my total score was almost 
650k which made me pretty happy.  Imagine my disappointment when the 
UA9QCQ robot told me In had only 427K points and I was not able to get 
the cork back in the champagne bottle.  The difference was in the point 
scores.  I think Writelog may be calculating the point totals for each 
band incorrectly.  But it might be the UA9QCQ robot, less likely.  My 
hope is that someone can fix that for 2014.

RE Spotting .....  I love operating assisted or using spotting networks 
and I continue to be amazed that more operators continue to do things 
the hard way.  As the SARTG rules, thank god, make no distinction 
between assisted and non assisted, we should be seeing greater use of 
spotting.  I went out of my way to re-spot stations that I had already 
worked.  I did that for a number of reasons, hopefully good ones.  I 
believe is helps stations avoid getting too close to one another.  If we 
are in a stations skip zone the cluster may help in indicating that the 
frequency is occupied and thus avoid setting-up too close.  I think it 
also help low power stations attract business and most times I am a low 
power station.  I also believe that for the younger generation it makes 
RTTY contesting almost as appealing as a computer game.

We are always talking about getting young people into ham radio.  I 
think spotting is a big draw for young computer kids.  It worked with my 
granddaughter.  She was fascinated watching me RTTY contest for years.  
When she was 13 I started the hard sell when I said, "You too can be a 
RTTY contester."   In the space of five months she had passed the Extra 
and is now a RTTY contester too.  She is a very competitive fifteen year 
old who loves to click on band map spots or run a frequency. She lives 
in an apartment in NYC with home station and a trip out to my station is 
not always possible, but look for NY2GB in the CQ WW RTTY .

The bottom line: send more spots.  There is no reason not to, certainly 
in the SARTG contest, and a number of good reasons to post more spots.

73 de Frank....N2FF.......