[GreenKeys] ARRL RTTY Contest

[Wa3frp]

I thought that I'd add my two cents to the discussion. 

Going back in the history files, the first RTTY contest was run in 1953 by the RTTY Society of Southern California.  Twenty-nine hams took part in that first contest.  The exchange was very interesting, modeled after the ARRL CW Sweepstakes exchange from that period as it contained a serial number, originating station call, check or RST report of two or three numbers, ARRL section of originator, local time (0000-2400 preferred) and date. That was quite a lot to be typing by hand and since the local time was included, it precluded using paper tape for the entire exchange.

I was involved in RTTY contesting in the late 1960s and early 1970s and even finished fourth worldwide in the CARTG RTTY Contest from W3ABT.  I remember the results from that particular contest very well since they came out in the RTTY Journal issue that announced the ST-6 to the RTTY world. 

After the early 1970s, work and family caused my to ditch radioteletype for a while.  My work had me running the Western Union Telex network across three states and what stated as a hobby became a profession. 

Fast forward to 2004 when I was able to get my Model 28s back on the air using my 1950s and 1960s ex-military Collins designed transmitter and receiver and I was really surprised to find how technology had moved forward over 30+ years.  Not only do PCs with soundcards emulate teleprinters but they do it better than their predecessors in so many ways.  But before I state why this is true, let me say that I still use my Teletype machines on the air, just not in the contests.  I've had so many wonderful RTTY QSOs, some with folks from Greenkeys, and it is really interesting to report how many people are fascinated to have a RTTY conversation with a station that is running a real teleprinter and not just emulating one. Some of the folks have actually posted this info on the cluster after a QSO, with things in the comments field like "Real RTTY".  

There are a lot of people on RTTY today using equipment from a lot of different eras that are on the air for conversation.  In fact there is a W6 (from California) who in or almost every day at about 14.086 - 20M RTTY who is looking for folks to chat and three or four hams usually get into the discussion that ranges over both technical and non-technical subjects. 

So, let me make my first piont.  YOU CAN HAVE A REAL CONVERSATION ON RTTY TODAY AND ANY DAY.   If you'd like to meet me on the air, I work 80 thru 10 meters, please drop me a note. 

Now to the reasons why PCs with soundcards are preferred in contests...  

I was using my Model 28 ASR in all of the contests from 2004 up to 2010.  There were two main reasons to switch to MMTTY and N1MM software.  The first reason was logging the contest results.   Even with only 100 contest contacts, logging the QSOs in my paper log and then typing that log into electronic format to submit to the contest organizers took almost as much time as operating in the contest.

The second reason that I switched to PCs and soundcards was the contests that used a variable exchange format such as the time.  Contests that use just a signal report and CQ zone are easy to run via paper tape.  But the BARTG spring RTTY contest, among others, requires the time to be exchanged. It was a real pain to type up a paper tape and then not be able to get through to a particular station for minutes after the time that I typed on the paper tape and to have to re-type the exchange.

The third reason is the fact that today's software can more accurately copy signals when conditions are less than optimum.  I've run my ST-6 and Model 28 ASR (80+ points of range) against MMTTY and a Model 28 is only marginally better when there is a lot of flutter on the RTTY signals.  Where MMTTY really shines is with weak signals and with any signal where there is adjacent station interference (QRM) and there is a lot of QRM on 80-40-20-15-10M during major contest weekends! 

And finally, there are probably 4000 RTTY contesters active and regularly on the air.  Where would these folks find 30 and 40 years old equipment in good condition to be able to operate in contests.  And, where would these folks find the training to be able to maintain these machines? I'm lucky that I can still tear down a Model 28 to its mainshaft and build it back up again.  But I went to class and learned how to maintain Teletype gear correctly during the 1960s.

So now, I can make a lot on contest QSOs and have all of the QSOs electronically logged and results to the contest organizers plus to LoTW in minutes after the contest is over. And, at the same time, I have the ability to run my Model 28s on 60, 66, 75 and 100 words per minute if I want to have a nice RTTY QSO. 

Here is a web page that lists all of the current RTTY contests:  www.rttycontesting.com   You can use this Web site to either find out about an upcoming contest to operate or to plan to be on the WARC (30M-17M-12M) bands during contest weekends.  This weekend is the UKrainian DX Digi contest that operates at 75 baud RTTY and PSK63.   It should be fun. 

73 ES DX
Russ - WA3FRP
wa3frp at aol.com

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