Setup guide
Good luck in the RTTY contests!
4.8 Starting in September
This first part of the big 3 part CQWW fall contest is coming soon.
CQWW RTTY occurs the last weekend in September. It is an excellent chance to test out antennas,
radios, amps, and other station changes made over the summer. It is also an excellent way to learn,
or brush up on, SO2R or other logging program features since you don't have to concentrate as much
on copying the exchanges and calls. You can pay attention to the computer and the mechanics of
your operating rather than worrying about making copying mistakes yourself.
I look at RTTY contesting a lot like CW contesting, but quieter. While it is useful to listen to the
received signal to make timing exchanges go smoother, you don't have to listen to most of the qrm
and other noise, you are just listening for the other guy to stop transmitting so you can start. Also, with
modern loggers, and more contesters realizing that RTTY is gaining popularity, the pace of RTTY
contesting is picking up. It wasn't long ago that a typical exchange was repeated several times, extra
'hello' and 'thanks' and brag stuff was added which slowed things down... now I think most operators
have figured out that rates well over 100/hr are very possible if you cut out the chit chat and use
exchanges like in CW contests with just a few simple modifications.
And don't think that it takes lots of extra hardware of special stuff to get into RTTY contesting. If you
are using a logger like N1MM and have hooked up your sound card as a voice keyer you are likely
just one cable away from RTTY operating. If you already have the computer playing audio to the
radio, all you need is to get the radio audio to the computer. With an FT−1000mp, and probably many
other radios, that can just be a single off the shelf cable from the line out−on the back of the radio to
the sound card line−in. This lets you use the radio in SSB and send/receive AFSK. DON'T listen to
the pundits that say you 'HAVE TO USE FSK' to do good! I have a wall full of plaques for winning
North America, the USA, or the World, ALL done with AFSK, and NEVER a complaint about the
signal. And all I had to add were 2 cables so I could use the narrow filters instead of SSB filters using
the mp's 'PKT' mode. And 100% FREE software!
It also presents you with some interesting technical operating capabilities. With a single sound card it
is possible to do SO2R and be decoding 2 bands at once, and not lose a beat decoding the 2nd radio
while transmitting on the first. With 2 sound cards, or 2 computers with one card each, you can
decode BOTH VFO's on 2 radios at once, so you can both CQ and S&P on 2 bands at once!! Talk
about technique building!
CQWW RTTY has some very interesting operating features. First, it has a very interesting
Multi−Single Low Power category. We ran that here and were able to win the World plaque a couple
times, how many times has someone in the states won a World plaque in CW or SSB??? This
category makes it nice for expeditions and other stations that don't have RTTY capable amps to do a
multi−op without a lot of big amps.
Next, CQWW RTTY is a 'Work Everyone' contest... You get to work everyone, including stateside.
Multipliers are states/provinces, countries, and zones... so your first stateside and Canadian on each
band are TRIPLE multipliers! This adds to the activity and there are virtually no slow times, there is
always someone out there to contact.
And as in most RTTY contests there is no 160m, so while that might be interesting if you have
antenna changes there to test, at least you don't have to worry about the end of summer noise quite
as much. This also means for M/S or M/2 entries you can spend more time on the productive 80m
and 40m night time bands.
So keep in mind, CQWW REALLY starts in September! Hook up those sound cards and get on the
air. Check out some of the digital contest reflectors and web sites for hints and suggestions. Join the
N1MM−Digital reflector if you use that logger for all the up to date info (including a new update to
MMTTY to make it work better with Vista!)
David Robbins K1TTT
13−2−2009 4 N1MM − RTTY operation / settings 53