[RTTY] Field Day Digital: PSK vs RTTY

[James C. Hall, MD]

This year at Reelfoot Amateur Radio Club FD operation, we had more interest in digital operations and decided to venture back into class 3A. Two years ago, we had a dedicated station for digital and it was RTTY only. We made only 68 QSO's. So this year, we decided to add PSK31 capability using N1MM software and the popular flDigi engine. Another decision I made was to also utilize this station on low band phone and keep the phone station on 10-15-20M. My thought was that digital activity would dry up and using 2 stations on phone (3 counting GOTA) would be advantageous.

The radio was my Elecraft K3 with P3 panadapter and older microham microkeyer. The antenna was a Spiderbeam at 38 feet and a 135 foot doublet. The whole setup worked very well. Digital contacts were mostly PSK31 with a smaller percentage going to RTTY - it never dried up ! As a result, only the GOTA station had 40M phone QSO's ! Ooops !

We had 179 digital QSO's this year. Not bad. Wish the PSK would move to the faster PSK63.

73, Jamie
WB4YDL