[WriteLog] Best RTTY decoder

Sun Mar 14 16:08:19 EST 2004

I did much searching of 3830 for your story with no luck, could you be more
specific where it's located? I'd like to read it.

I'm surprised you ever had trouble with RITTY copy below S5, you must have
had very low level audio from your sound card. I've always used a small
cheapie Optimus (Radio Shack) stereo amplifier on my sound card output with
a nice big volume control and I routinely copy signals that barely register
on the S meter with RITTY.

That speaks well of the PK-232 that it would approach RITTY or MMTTY in weak
signal copy. I've never used one.

I agree with Bill, W6WET (below) Ritty still beats even MMTTY in most low
signal cases. But, it's harder to tune than MMTTY. That's why I love the
"clone" receive only function (thanks, Wayne), now I can use RITTY in RX and
leave the Autotune on to keep the pips in the windows and use MMTTY for
transmit and leave its AFC off. To me, that's the best performing setup I've
found.

Don W6FFH

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jim Smith" <jimsmith at shaw.ca>
To: <writelog at contesting.com>
Sent: Sunday, March 14, 2004 12:15 AM
Subject: Re: [WriteLog] Best RTTY decoder

> I too use RITTY.  I have found that running the Rx audio through a mixer
> allows me to adjust the audio level as needed.  Originally, I had a lot
> of trouble getting reliable printing with signals S5 or lower.  Being
> able to adjust the audio level has taken care of that problem.  While
> you can adjust the sensitivity of RITTY when running it in DOS, I have
> found no way of doing that in the WL version.  Fiddling with the Windows
> volume controls during a contest is a non-starter for me.
>
> In the process of doing this, I found my old PK-232 MBX without the new
> mods will print signals just as weak as RITTY will, provided, once
> again, that you adjust the input level properly.  (The mixer sure makes
> this easy - a different slide pot for each.)  I haven't compared them
> under QRM conditions.  So, now I have them printing in separate
> windows.  Sometimes the PK-232 gets it right when RITTY doesn't.
>
> See my WPX RTTY story on 3830 for mnore info on this.
>
> 73 de Jim Smith   VE7FO
>
> John Cashen wrote:
>
> > Bill, W6WET wrote:
> >
> > "I know this doesn't answer you question directly, but you'd be better
> > off to ditch the HAL and download MMTTY.  I've compared the two side by
> > side using two computers with the same audio feed, and MMTTY beats the
> > HAL hands down for pulling the weak ones out.  My DXP-38 has been
> > gathering dust for several years now.  Anyone want it?  Make me an
> > offer; it'll go cheap.
> >
> > And if you want the absolute best in RTTY decoding, purchase RiTTY by
> > K6STI.  It isn't cheap - $100 - but it beats everything else I've tried.
> > It requires specific soundcards and runs only under DOS (real DOS, not
> > the Windows emulation).   Personally, I wouldn't be without it."
> >
> > I agree with Bill and have been saying so for several years now. When
> > one looks at what the HALs used to cost, RITTY seems good value for
> > money. Certainly MMTTY is the best value, being freeware. The
> > difference between the two S/W decoders is that RITTY is optimized for
> > RTTY contesting whereas MMTTY is more an all-purpose decoder. There
> > are several very important features in RITTY that makes it superior
> > for contesting whenever there are weak signals, or in QRN, or QRM
> > environments, or all three. When the S/N is high then both decoders
> > perform very well, but then so do most decoders.
> >
> > RITTY works very well in SO mode with both Writelog and RTTY(by WF1B),
> > but you cannot use two copies of RITTY with two separate sound cards
> > to use Writelog in SO2R as you can with MMTTY. RITTY was configured
> > without regard for a second sound card (or the advent of another board
> > standard other than ISA) and one must use a different decoder type for
> > the second radio. Some use their HAL ,while I (and others) use MMTTY
> > on a second sound card (PCI).I have had no significant problems except
> > that I couldn't make the new dueling CQs work in Writelog 10.45. This
> > was because of a timing problem with MMTTY and was presumably fixed in
> > 10.46G, but I still can't seem to make dueling CQs work.
> >
> > Since K6STI no longer upgrades RITTY and because  it is DOS-based and
> > limited to using only ISO sound boards, there will  eventually be only
> > obsolete S/W or hardware platforms that it will run on. What a shame
> > if technology were to  take a step backwards.   Wouldn't it be nice if
> > MMTTY or some other new Windows-based PCI/USB decoder were to capture
> > the contesting features that make RITTY so great so we could have it
> > on future machines?
> >
> > I for one would pay another $100.
> >
> > John  VK4UC
> >
> >
> >
> >
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