[GreenKeys] RTTY activity - need more

[Gary Chatters]

Even more random comments on the idea of RTTY activity:


In writing my previous post I thought of 80m as the band to use for
regional activity.  After thinking about it, well maybe it is, but I am
not sure and would be interested to hear other thoughts. 40m or even 30m
might provide better coverage, which will be needed considering the likely
low number of stations that will participate.  Also, people like me who
have limited antenna space will do better on shorter wavelengths.

If you have power and a good antenna, good coverage on 80m is possible.
Last night I decided to listen a bit on 80m to see what activity there
might be.  At about 9:15pm EDT there was one station blasting in at about
3625kHz.  I noticed at that point that I had not put my TU back in the
rack after a recent rearrangement, but also realized that the station was
W1AW with its bulletin transmission.  It almost always puts in a good
signal down here in Maryland, but they have antenna and power.

Bill has a good point on specifying and measuring mark frequency to get
everyone on the same frequency.  But I don't think it would be much more
trouble to specify center frequency and just add 85Hz to get mark
frequency to measure.

Bill's comment on 425Hz shift was also interesting.  If any actual on the
air actitivity comes out of this that may be something to try in the
future.  Current computer programs may not be capable of single tone
demodulation, but given the current capabilities of computers you can
program in whatever you want.

I agree with staying away from QRP activity or any CW activity in the low
part of the bands.  I am not a QRP operator.  Not yet anyway, but I want
to keep the option open.

Part of the purpose is to promote operation of mechanical Teletypes.  When
publicizing the activity it may be a good idea to explain what the
computer RTTY users need to do to be machine friendly.  That is, send
<CR><CR><LF><LTRS><LTRS> after each line.

Enough rambling for now.  Back to real work.

Gary