First RTTY Attempt !!

I have had success using most Digital modes including PSK31,SSTV ,Olivia and several others. I had never tried RTTY except for the old Teletype style machines back in High School and of course those were phone line connections. The RTTY I decided to try is the "Radio"version and specifically the contesting variety!

The first full weekend of January is the ARRL RTTY Round-up. This contest is for all Amateurs Worldwide and is not limited to just baudot or ASCII RTTY but also AMTOR, PSK31 and attended Packet operation.

I'm a member of the Minnesota Wireless Association and feel very fortunate to have access to many members and their expertise at many aspects of contesting. I emailed the MWA reflector to ask what program and Logger was recommended for RTTY. One response from Bob, an MWA member , was very detailed and several back and forth emails with great instructions helped Me get started . I use N1MM for My contest logger and also used MMTTY to try RTTY before. These two programs can work together and these were the two recommended to Me.

I should have started this process long before contest time but only had three days to change program parameters and make sure the hardware was correct. With Bob's help I accomplished the programm setup and interfacing. Then shortly before the contest began I copied His Macros' into the program and changed His call sign to mine.Bob included the screen shot at the beginning of this post and mine ended looking very much like his layout. The RTTY engine at lower left, logging middle and band spotting on the sides. A quick test to make sure it works and I was off to another obligation-- a lunch out with My Family!

Several Hours later, after the start of the contest, I was able to be back in My Ham Shack to try RTTY! When testing this set up before I had backed power down to 5 watts and of course forgot and started this contest at QRP levels! Started on 20m and first station was incredibbly P49X, a station in Aruba! I replied and - voila! Reply came back and P49X became My first RTTY contact ever!! At 5 Watts!! It was only later I realized My power level was QRP and after some testing to see what level most stations would reply back to, left it at 40 watts out. Not sure if too much drive,but did not want to experiment trying to increase to about 80 watts, so left it at 40 watts for the rest of the contest.

This contest proved to be a lot more fun than I thought it would be. I knew even before the reply was complete , if it would be a loggable QSO , because most would send My call and QSL or TU ( thank-you ) and then their call and query for another QSO . I did have several issues with macros not being exactly what I needed but was still able to make it manageable. I'm sure some Stations thought My exchange was too long, but didn't bother to complain!

Overall My results for My first time weren't too bad with 5084 total points. Didn't have as many DX stations as I had hoped for but for time spent and being a first timer, not bad!

I'll be better prepared for the next RTTY contest!!