[RTTY] NS RTTY Sprint

[Ken K6MR]

I don’t know of a RTTY group like CWOps (Bill W6WRT might know). What I have noticed is except for contest weekends and our little group on Thursday, other RTTY activity is just about non-existent. A few DXPeditions perhaps, or an unusual country.  Seems that PSK31 has taken over the casual ops along with the JT modes.

When Claude VE2FK put out his “request for comments” several months ago regarding a CWT type of RTTY session it was crickets. It seems RTTY has become kind of a specialty mode just for certain contests and for those keeping up their DXCC totals.

Sprints are an acquired taste to be sure. I think they are in the “no pain, no gain” category. Not easy to learn but rewarding when you do.  Probably like WAE and QTCs (which I have yet to master).  But practice makes things better.

Hey: how about Sprints with QTCs?  (kidding, kidding…)

Ken K6MR

From: Tim Shoppa<mailto:tshoppa at gmail.com>
Sent: Sunday, May 14, 2017 6:54 AM
To: rtty at contesting.com<mailto:rtty at contesting.com>
Subject: Re: [RTTY] NS RTTY Sprint

Ken K6MR writes:

> I?m not sure what the breakdown of working/retired folks is on the
> morning/afternoon CWTs, but except for a few that have noted they operate
> from work (VE9AA in his car, for example) I?d bet most are retired. So that
> limits an already small group. I know two of our most active stations are
> work constrained during the day.  As I noted in a previous post, VE2FK
> asked publically about a daytime CWT-style RTTY session and no one
> responded. If we wanted to have a standard contest style session, that
> would definitely be the way to go. Something completely separate from NS,
> sort of like what they did with the Tuesday night Fone Fray.
>

Ken, as a Thursday night RTTY sprint regular, I think the
half-hour-dupes-allowed-with-QSY-rule works out very nicely. You might
remember I was worried about some rules complications from QSY rule at the
start but those worries never ever materialized in real life.

While I love going for the jump ball and being denied just to come up again
on a different frequency a few seconds later, other contesters feel very
differently about the sprint format.

I do remember trying my first NCJ NA CW sprints and just wanting to bash my
radio in after losing a couple jump balls, it does take a special kind of
gumption to jump in the deep end like that. But a few months of Thursday
night CW sprints got me into that groove, and now I yearn for the QSY and
jump ball.

I think a half-hour non-sprint RTTY session on a weekday night would be OK,
like Phone Fray. I try to support Phone Fray but Tuesday night with the
kids is one where I can't always duck away (will change over summer break I
hope.)

Weekday daytimes, would be tough for me because I'd usually be at work.
When I have to take a day off for doctors appointments I try to do it on
Wednesdays, or when I have to work overnight I try to arrange it so I get
to be at home during the day on Wednesday, so I get on for CWOps daytime
sessions a couple times a year.

Is there/was there a RTTY club like CWOps? When I was a kid back in the
80's making my own homebrew TU for a Model 32, I knew that there were RTTY
newsletters presumably snail-mailed but I never was quite in that league.
It wouldn't surprise me if they had some regular activities at least a
little like CWOps mini-CWT back then.

Tim N3QE
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