Topband: N7QT on "Increasing the Rate of the JT Modes"

[Tim Shoppa]

In the latest ARRL Contest Update, N7QT has a very interesting article on
increasing rate with the usually slow JT65 modes, from a max of one QSO
every 6 minutes to one every 4 minutes. K7ADD notes an additional doubling
of rate can be achieved if you can keep two QSO's in flight at any point in
time by interleaving transmit and receive on two different frequencies
within the same band (a EXTREMELY advanced technique, and one that does not
eat much more bandwidth given the extremely low bandwidth these modes
take), giving a rate of 20 or even 30  QSO's per hour.

So possibly these methods could be used by a DXpedition that has already
worked through all the "Easy" CW guys at a higher rate earlier.

N7QT also notes that from the west coast on the pickup in activity from
Asia on JT65:  "He often decodes more signals between 14.076 MHz and 14.078
MHz than there are signals in the entire CW band segment."

See details in the ARRL contest update here: http://www.arrl.org/
contest-update-issues?issue=2017-05-17

Me? I love RTTY contesting so you might think I'd appreciate JT65. But the
one time a local friend tried to show me JT65 in action I got bored and
wandered away long before I got to see an actual QSO. But maybe us
contesters and DX'ers have something to teach these digital guys something
about rate!

Tim N3QE