[GreenKeys] RTTY activity

[jhhaynes at earthlink.net]

It seems to me that PSK31 has largely supplanted RTTY as the general
keyboard ragchewing mode.  If you want to contact somebody these days
just to chat, you use PSK.   RTTY remains popular mostly for contests
and DX work because of the rapid turnaround - PSK takes some time
to start and stop.  Also in a contest or DX work if what you see
on the page looks approximately like what you want to see you call
it good, which is to say you tolerate a high error rate.

I don't imagine we will see many of those contesters on greenkeys,
because they are strictly computer operators, not interested in the
Real Teletype hardware.  Back in the 1950s, harrumph, we worked
contests with Real Teletypes, and every character that went out on
the air was typed by hand.  Today the contest is just a matter of
button pushing; the computer does all the message generation and
reception.  And if you like to do contests, and if you are already
set up for PSK or have an old TNC like a KAM or PK232 then it's
easy enough to get on the air on RTTY for a contest.



jhhaynes at earthlink dot net