I don’t operate a lot of data modes, and this is one of only a small number of RTTY contests I’ve been active in from home. The usual station, IC-7610 with 100W and the attic dipoles. Using FSK to send RTTY from the rig, which was relatively easy to configure as all but the com port number had been saved by N1MM and MMTTY. I also ran 2Tone as a 2nd decoder, and that worked particularly well on 80m.
As usual I missed the start because that’s the time when I’m catching up with family back in the UK and family comes before radio.
By the time I got going I’d missed most of the action on 15m, but it was still open to the West Coast. I found that 20m was OK, and 40m was the worst band. However, 80m was doing very well until I got a little too fed up of folks coming along and trying to interleave themselves with my signal, which was stopping any of us working anyone.
North American QSO Party, RTTY - February Call: AD5XI Operator(s): AD5XI Station: AD5XI Class: Single Op LP Operating Time (hrs): 4.5 Summary: Band QSOs Mults ------------------- 80: 74 24 40: 24 12 20: 38 15 15: 4 3 10: ------------------- Total: 140 54 Total Score = 7,560 Club: Potomac Valley Radio Club Team: PVRC Downtown-Laurel-Northwest
There’s only so much RTTY I can tolerate and it seems like around 4.5 hours in a few sessions is about it. Same operating time as the last NAQP RTTY last summer, but more QSOs and points. Fewer multipliers though. However, I did fill in 8 new states, taking my total worked on RTTY to 47. The last 3 will be tough, especially Alaska!