[RTTY] Rotten Tones

[Hank Garretson]

Back in the day, The Old Man (later revealed to be W1AW himself) advocated
using the Rettysnitch and the Wouff Hong to discipline
“rotten-operating-practices” offenders. Early in 1919, The Old Man wrote in
QST, "I am sending you a specimen of a real live Wouff Hong which came to
light out here ... Keep it in the editorial sanctum where you can lay hands
on it quickly in an emergency." The "specimen of a real live Wouff Hong"
was presented to a meeting of the ARRL Board and QST reported later that
"each face noticeably blanched when the awful Wouff Hong was ... laid upon
the table." Ah, the good-old days.

The good-old days are still with us. There were Rotten Tones all over the
place during the RTTY Roundup. Too many sounded terrible to the naked ear.
Too many were buzzy. Too many had clicks. Too many were way too wide.

Most of the problems are caused by improperly-adjusted AFSK. Great
information on doing AFSK right is here

http://www.aa5au.com/rtty.html

and here

http://audiosystemsgroup.com/HamInterfacing.pdf

The problem is that most of the offenders don't know they're
offending--they haven't the foggiest.

How do we fix that. First, YOU may be an offender. In the transceiver age,
many of us have never heard our own signals. Before operating we owe it to
ourselves and to our fellow hams to find a way to check our signals. Maybe
an old receiver or an across-the-town ham.

I sometimes send gentle emails to hams suggesting that they will have more
success and fun if they do it better.

In many cases, I get grateful I-didn’t-know-that return emails. More
satisfying, often I work a guy later and his signal is fixed.

Send some gentle emails. If we do nothing, nothing gets fixed. Be part of
the solution.

RTTY Exuberantly,

Hank,  W6SX