[RTTY] VK0EK RTTY QSO Rate

[Ed Muns]

Excellent points.

As much as I would like the RTTY QSO rate to be high on DXpeditions, I can
understand the first priority being on ATNO mixed mode, best done on CW.
However, once the total QSOs exceeds 50K, SSB and RTTY should be getting
more attention for the mode DXCC awards.  Probably equal priority is working
all bands.  Much further down the list is trying to work all band-modes.

All of this has to be done with an understanding of worldwide propagation so
as to be as fair as possible to different regions.  The sum total of all
this can be complex and, as Don notes, needs to be dynamically adjusted as
the QSO statistics accumulate during the expedition.

The good thing about donating before the trip is that most of the money
needs to be spent prior to the first QSO.  Donating beforehand is our way of
supporting the project so that it happens in the first place.  3% may be a
low RTTY QSO percentage but it is higher than 0% if the trip never took
place.  ;>)

There is an equally strong argument for donating after the QSOs are made as
a reward for a well-executed project.

Maybe we should split our donation dollars between before and after the
trip.

Ed W0YK

P.S.  FT4JA currently has a 7% RTTY QSO rate which is better, but still low
in my opinion, since they have a very high QSO count now.
__________________________________________________________________

Don AA5AU wrote:

The problem is that these DXpeditions solicit money before the trip. For
VK0EK, I believe my club may have donated $500 or something like that. Then
we get this kind of response for RTTY and we wonder why we made the donation
at all. I will suggest to my club that we offer to donate to DXpeditions
AFTER the trip. If the trip goes well, we donate. If not, they get less than
what we planned to give or give nothing at all. Joe is right on this point.

In addition to the club support, I normally will pitch in for something
after the DXpedition but I will not be contributing to this one unless
something drastically changes in the next 3 days, 18 hours and 18 minutes.

%3 RTTY is a terrible percentage. I realize they have experienced poor high
band conditions but it's no excuse. So they planned to use 15 meters as the
main RTTY band. This would not have been a bad plan a year ago but not now.
When things are not working as they should, then the plan needs to change.
(Unless they planned on only doing 3% RTTY). They need to be on 20 and 30
meter RTTY. The demand for RTTY is just too high for them to continue to
ignore it. They were on 15 RTTY this morning. I was there watching and
didn't see one letter printed from them.

Makes you wonder why they chose to make the trip this part of the cycle
anyway. Did they think the SFI was going to hang in the 100s forever?

It's disappointing that so many of us are disappointed. Obviously they are
working people since they have 63,748 contacts in the log.