[Elecraft] MMTTY DATA-A or FSK

[Fred Jensen]

On 10/1/2014 7:06 PM, david Moes wrote:
> I have dabbled a bit with RTTY mostly with the Centenial and some DX but
> this past weekend I thought  Ill give the CQWW-RTTY a try. spent a
> little time and got things working using N1MM and MMVARI using DATA-A
> relying on the P3  for waterfall display.   It seems I got bitten by the
> RTTY contest bug  because I loved it.  So here is the question to the
> serious RTTY contester.   what is the ideal setup.   is MMTTY and DATA-A
> best or should I interface for fsk. and is MMTTY the best option here?
> and more important what is the best way to do this both from software
> and hardware setup.
>
There are as many answers as there are people on this list, David.  I 
run minimalist for 295 Q's in the RTTY this last weekend in about 7 hrs 
of operation.  Two Radio Shack stereo cables, computer line out goes to 
K3 line in, K3 line out goes to computer line in, I run N1MM and MMTTY. 
  I did finally put a 10 dB audio pad in the cable to the computer line 
in, the K3 was a little hot for it, but it worked fine without the pad 
too, just a tad touchy.  VOX keys the K3.

With a K3 and its incredibly clean audio, AFSK and direct FSK are 
essentially indistinguishable if your sound card is clean, and most are 
these days ... you can get really good ones, see K9YC's website -- 
audiosystemsgroup.com

There are many who use various interfaces -- SignalLink, Microham, and 
others, and those who use direct FSK, it seems like a lot of questions 
arise with this extra hardware, but I've never used any of it so I'm not 
the guy to expound on them, I've just never needed them and they were 
more software running on my logging computer.

One thing with N1MM ... be sure to define your RTTY macro file to it for 
each contest so it knows which macros to load.  And a few tips, take as 
you wish.

Start every transmission with {TX}{ENTER}TEXT and follow the text by one 
space and {RX}.

The {ENTER} starts you on his next line, clear of any garbage he's 
printed before you answered or called.  The space at the end of your 
transmission clears you of the noise he's going to print as soon as your 
MARK goes away.

Following the text with more line feeds causes your text to jump up in 
his window [not on Writelog, AFIK], and makes it hard to click on your call.

RTTY being auto-decoded, it's a really good idea if you are running, to 
make your exchange: DL6XX 599 03 CA DL6XX.  He probably knows who and 
where you are, he called you, but he may not know that he's the guy you 
responded to.  By that time, the pile and QRM may have subsided.  I put 
my own call at the end of S&P exchanges again, just to make sure he got 
it right.  Others don't which is OK too.

Keep in mind that the 5-unit Baudot code has 32 possible combinations, 
not enough for all the alphabet, numbers and punctuation.  Sending "5NN 
03 CA" adds two additional characters -- a LTRS in the signal report, 
and a FIGS to get to the zone.  Same for punctuation.  Since we're all 
running at the exact same code speed, adding function characters isn't 
going to improve rate. :-)

I'd start minimalist if you can, and then decide if you need additional 
interface hardware.

73,

Fred K6DGW
- Northern California Contest Club
- CU in the 2014 Cal QSO Party 4-5 Oct 2014
- www.cqp.org