[RTTY] Lack of RTTY on 40 and 80 Meters

[Thomas W4HM]

I make RTTY DX and rag chew QSO's every day on 10, 15, 17 and 20 meters. 
Also 30 meters in the evening EDT from here in central Florida. But 40 and 
80 meters are slow when there are no ongoing contests as most ops are on the 
higher bands while the daily sunspot number is still at or just past peak.

As solar cycle 24 wanes more RTTY activity will shift downward (or is that 
upward) to 40 and 80 meters. Right now most RTTY activity is around 
7040-7050 kHz and on 80 meters 3590-3595 kHz.

But 160 meters is a totally different animal

There was a time when there was allot of 160 meter RTTY activity between 
1805-1810 kHz every winter DX season night time but now the band is
virtually empty in comparison to years past. There "were" many ham's with 
full sized 160 meter transmit antennas that had been ham's for many decades
and lived in the country or on large city lots and had the room for full 
sized 160 meter transmit antennas and specialized receive antennas such as 
four
squares. Well the majority of those guys are SK now and many were active on 
RTTY.

Also virtually no RTTY contests include the 160 meter band. This made sense 
years ago when there was wall to wall CW activity between 1800-1840 kHz but 
any given night nowadays the CW sub band on 160 meters is virtually empty as 
most of those operators are now SK. There was also wall to wall SSB activity 
between 1840-2000 kHz and much AM activity between 1880 and 2000 kHz but the 
vast majority of that activity is now also gone due to the SK syndrome.

The only time I see allot of activity on 160 meters is during CW and SSB 
contests and even that amount of activity is down compared to yesteryear. 
This will be a controversial statement to some RTTY ops but I think it's 
time to include 160 meters during RTTY contests so that there is more 
activity on the band.

73 & GUD DX,
Thomas F. Giella W4HM
Lakeland, FL, USA
thomasfgiella at gmail.com

BARTG #8531
PODXS 070 #349
FELD HELD #141
30MDG # 691
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W4HM Amateur Radio & SWL Autobiography: http://www.w4hm.org
W4HM's Medium Frequency Radio Wave Propagation Theory Notes: 
http://www.solarcycle24.org

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