[RTTY] RTTY Activity outside of contests

[Barry Murrell ZS2EZ]

Hi All

 

After a quite lengthy absence from RTTY due to antenna woes (my old A3S
snapped in a 107km/hr wind some months back, and had been flakey for a long
time before that!) I finally have another antenna up - a Hygain TH-7DX at 50
ft. Over the past couple of weeks I have been calling CQ on both 15 and 20,
with moderate to poor results. I had one reasonable run of 75 Q's on 20m in
about 90 min on this past Thursday night, but otherwise only a handful of
stations answering my calls.

 

I run the DXLab software, and have Spotcollector monitoring 4 clusters -
including the DL4RCK Digital Cluster. This afternoon (Sunday) at around
14h50 I was calling on 15m, and saw at least 10 Skimmer reports from all
over EU and NA - yet had ONE reply to my calls (PB0AEX with a good signal).
Although I am running barefoot 100W from my TS-590S, the Skimmer reports
show that I am getting out.. There is just nobody around to work!!

 

This leaves me with only 2 conclusions - either nobody is interested in
working ZS on 15m anymore, or there is simply nobody around on RTTY outside
contests!!! Very sad....

 

73 de BARRY MURRELL ZS2EZ

KF26ta - Port Elizabeth, South Africa

EPC#0558 DMC#1690 WCC#030 30MDG#4081

DXCC(mixed)#41,146  DXCC(RTTY)#1,916

DXCC(phone)#34,990  DXCC(CW)#11,714

DXCC 40m,30m,20m,17m,15m,12m,10m

WAS Triple Play #492  WAS(RTTY)#538  WAZ(RTTY)#185  WAE-I(mixed)#72

WAZS(mixed)#214  AAA#1569

AS ZR6DXB: VUCC(50MHZ)#1,334  UKSMG WAE(Silver)#75  UKSMG AFRICA#22  WAC
(Satellite)

website :  <http://www.zs2ez.co.za/> www.zs2ez.co.za