[RTTY] New Ham

[Bill Turner]

ORIGINAL MESSAGE:          (may be snipped)

On Fri, 15 Nov 2013 15:25:09 -0800 (PST), Wayne wrote:

>One area of concern I have is needed, preferred, and nice to have pieces of equipment for my shopping list. 

REPLY:

Welcome to RTTY, Wayne. One of the best places to start for any new RTTY op
is AA5AU's excellent web page:  http://aa5au.com/rtty.html

Don is a long time RTTY op and a major contester. Follow his advice and you
can't go wrong. 

As to hardware I would give only one piece of advice. RTTY is a full carrier
mode and can be hard on amplifiers. Before you buy any amp, verify what its
power rating is for RTTY vs SSB or CW. Often manufacturers only give the
ratings for SSB and CW and if you run it at that power on RTTY there may be
some smoke to follow.  :-)  If you can't find a RTTY rating, it's pretty
safe to assume it is about 1/2 the SSB/CW, or maybe a wee bit more. 

This also applies to other equipment as well. For example, don't be tempted
to run the Unadilla antenna traps with high power even though they advertise
2 kW PEP. See my review of their traps  on eHam.net. Unadilla is an
especially bad company in regards to over-rating their stuff and not
standing behind it. I am still going around with them and the Massachusetts
Department of Consumer Protection for fraudulent advertising. Next step will
be the Federal Trade Commission. I don't mean to scare anybody here, just
warning you to be careful about advertised power ratings for RTTY.

I too have used a gutter antenna and made a few QSOs but try to get a real
antenna up as soon as possible. It will be a lot more fun. 

Welcome to the group, and BTW, most of us attach our call signs to our
signature so we know you when we meet you on the air. 

73, Bill W6WRT