[WriteLog] Suggestions for RTTY RU

Sun Jan 2 20:12:21 PST 2011

Hi, Dick! Thanks to you and the several others who have contributed to this
thread. I agree with most of the points and admit that I do get anxious
when contest exchanges are not snappy. I suspect, though, that few of the
readers on these reflectors send long exchanges. Most of the arguably too
long transmissions come from well-meaning casual participants whose only
interest in a contest is having an abundance of stations to work and
possibly pursuit of QSOs for awards. Despite my personal frustration with
unnecessarily long contest transmissions, I also am very thankful that these
casual stations get on the air to help fill my log. So, it's a mixed bag.
I feel the best way to deal with this issue is to make sure we don't
intimidate or scare off the many casual participants who make up a large
share of our log entries. By graciously accepting them in our activity and
showing by example how contest exchanges should be made, I believe in time
many of them will improve their style. This is a great outcome ... growing
participation and growing contesting skill!
Ed - W0YK
Dick, W0RAA, wrote:
> Hi everybody,
>> Well, it's that time of the year and I hope everybody is 
> getting ready for the ARRL RTTY Roundup Contest on January 8 & 9.
>> I'd like to make a couple suggestions or so:
>> 1. Please DO NOT use CUT NUMBERS in the Contest!
>> 2. Send 599, NOT 5NN or TOO!
> You're not saving any time with cut numbers and in RTTY they 
> are totally not necessary.
>> 3. It's not necessary to send "Hi 'name', nice to hear u. Ur 
> 599 in 'state/prov'. Everybody knows their own name. I know 
> it's just a friendly gesture, but not necessary, and besides, 
> you're wasting the time of the station you are communicating 
> with at the time. A simple TU 599 'state/prov' is all that's 
> needed. (All you'll get from me when I send my report is 
> "URCALL TU 599 CO CO de W0RAA". Add ur own call or the other 
> stations call at the end if you like. I prefer to use my own 
> call. But again, probably not necessary.
>> These are just suggestions to hopefully speed things along in 
> the contest. 
> Being cordial is OK, but let's just do it after the contest.
>> Oops, I almost forgot...
>> 4. Be sure to send your cabrillo files to 
> logs at supercheckpartial.com when you submit your score for the 
> contest. It gets your call in the data base for future contests.
>> Other than that, I hope to hear many of you again this year. 
> My beam came down in a fierce wind storm we had here in 
> Colorado Springs on Dec. 3, 2010, so I'll be in the RTTY RU, 
> just not as loud as I'd like to be. I'll be using my 
> Butternut HF-9V instead of the HyGain tri-bander. I'm going 
> to be putting up another tower and the hole is dug for it, 
> but the nights have been cold here. Waiting for a little 
> warm-up to have the concrete poured. 
> The beam will be a Cushcraft A3S and it will be on a Hazer2 
> Tram system for raising and lowering the beam & rotor. My 
> rotor, a Ham V was not damaged in the tower fall. Thank 
> Heavens for ARRL insurance. I got a settlement from them 
> within 2 weeks and only had a 50ドル deductible. My homeowners 
> insurance would have covered it, but the deductible would 
> have been 1000ドル. Ouch. I hope to have it up in time for the 
> CQ WW WPX RTTY in February, with any cooperation at all from 
> our weather gods.
>> See you all next weekend, I hope. And good luck in the RTTY RU.
>> 73,
>> Dick
> W0RAA