[Elecraft] Me and my K3 in the ARRL RTTY Roundup

[Richard Ferch]

Jim,

W0EB wrote:

> Now, the main observation.  There were an awful lot of "Alligator" stations out there \
> that don't have very good receivers.  If I could decode the signals, I called them.  \
> Many of the weaker signals came right back to me, but an awful lot of the S9+ \
> stations couldn't seem to hear anything (not just me, but a lot of stations).

I suspect this particular problem doesn't have much to do with their 
receivers. I believe it may be characteristic of RTTY, caused by the 
presence of multiple stations responding to a CQ. In CW or SSB, the CQer 
can often pick out one or more calls by ear from a pileup, with the help 
of small differences in tone/pitch, speed and signal strength. In RTTY, 
if none of the responders' signals is strong enough to dominate the 
input to the decoder, the operator is likely to see only garble on his 
screen and not be able to pick out any call signs until the pileup thins 
out.

I believe this may be why the problem seemed to be worse with louder 
stations - they are the ones who are most likely to attract a big pileup 
every time they CQ.

73,
Rich VE3KI