[RTTY] 2Tone vs. MMTTY - Round 2 testing

Don Hill AA5AU aa5au at bellsouth.net
Sat Feb 16 15:21:24 EST 2013


Today I decided to make screen shots of 5X8C on 20 meters comparing two MMTTY windows and two 2Tone windows side-by-side.

The decoders were set as follows:
MMTTY1 - Fluttered FIR profile, , AGC on, dual peak filter enabled
MMTTY2 - Normal profile, ACG on, dual peak filter enabled
2Tone1 - Normal with Narrow setting
2Tone2 - Normal with Wide setting

When I first found him he was not real strong, say peaking S3-S5. I made over 60 screenshots and notes but by then his signal had
risen to S9 with some fades to S3 to S5, but they were not rapid fades like at first.

After his signal reached S9, I stopped making screenshots because all decoders were doing an excellent job, so I decided to watch
his next 100 transmissions and mark whether or not the 2Tone decodes were perfect and MMTTY took a hit, where MMTTY was perfect and
2Tone took a hit, where print was perfect in all four windows and where print was not perfect in either one of the 2Tone and MMTTY
windows. Here are those results:

2Tone perfect, MMMTY not perfect - 21 times
MMTTY perfect, 2Tone not perfect - 2 times
Both 2Tone & MMTTY perfect - 65 times
Both 2Tone & MMTTY not perfect - 12 times

Radio was a PRO III with TPF filter enabled and 250 Hz filter. AGC was set to MID (this is important). Decoders were set up in N1MM
Logger. CPU usage was running 70-80% because I had DX Labs Suite running as well.

Before his signal was S9, I was experimenting with the AGC. In the past, I have always used FAST AGC on RTTY, but I'm sure now that
is not the best setting. I read something from G3YYD, either in his documentation or in a post to the N1MM reflector, that 2Tone
works best with a slower AGC. Last weekend I used the MID AGC setting for the contest. I noticed that 2Tone performed better with an
AGC setting of MID or SLOW and maybe slow was better, but I will have to wait to see the screenshots.

I plan on creating a webpage with the screenshots of the 5X8C decodes before his signal was S9. He was never really weak but for a
time there were rapid fades on his signal until he got to S9. Then there was a CW signal in the ARRL DX Contest that was within the
passband of my filter for a short while (I varied the filter at times and turned off TPF in the radio at times too). The CW signal
was 180 Hz away from his SPACE signal. I will try to compose the webpage before the end of the weekend.

73, Don AA5AU
http://www.aa5au.com
http://www.rttycontesting.com





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