[GreenKeys] RTTY QSO

[Kevin H. Phillips]

On 12/22/2020 6:56 PM, Nick England wrote:
> I am pretty new to RTTY and have rarely copied a “QSO” lasting more 
> than 10 seconds. Things seem dead except for contests.

10 whole seconds???  Wow!  That would be a very looooong QSO from what I 
have observed in contests.  hihi  From what I gathered from following a 
contesting list the discussions usually revolve around keeping the 
exchanges to *milli*-seconds.


I have done several contests and try to have fun with them.  I've 
decided I am never going to be up for a big award for a variety of 
reasons.  Possibly the main reason is that I seem to live in the Black 
Hole of Propagation in the center of this country.  RF dies before it 
gets here.  I have *never* even heard half the number of stations that 
some people report working.  Another reason is that I simply do not have 
the time to sit glued to the operating chair/bench for that much time.  
I am also new when it comes to RTTY and contesting.  My shack has become 
a catch-all for a lot of my "stuff" so I am being forced to pare down my 
equipment.  The loop in my ST-6000 quit working so that is what I used 
for my heavy metal.  I do have an ST-6 with working loop that I could 
put in line but it also needs other work.  I finally removed my HAL 
DS3100ASR from the shack to make room for another computer screen after 
I began working from home after the pandemic hit.  My shack doubles as 
my "office".  Yeah, I know it is "glass" but I rationalized it by saying 
it was at least vintage glass.  I've slid farther down the glass 
slippery slope.  I have had a HAL ST-8000 so I installed DS-RTTY-WIN on 
a couple of 32-bit Windows 7 machines with serial ports.  I have used 
that set-up in a couple of contests and it works OK.  The 8000 has a 
built-in circuit that will key my radio (Yaesu FTDX-5000 which will do 
FSK RTTY).  I also used the N1MM logger with the 8000 and that worked 
fine.  I had a long RTTY QSO on 6m with a local ham who lives about 25 
miles from me.


Someone mentioned the IRL FSK-1000.  I have a couple of those and want 
to try them out.  From what I recall, the loop in one does not work.  I 
also don't have much time to work on repairing things.  I have dozens of 
projects that I start but then do not finish.


I'm on holiday now so excuse the rambling.  Merry Christmas and Happy 
Holidays!


73

Kevin

W5TTY


-- 
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus