SoMe MoRe ThoTs on SteReo RTTY

While Stereo-RTTY (a late descendant of Stereo-CW) is hardly a new idea, recent months have
found me experimenting with different ways to actually achieve the most effective results using this method.  In summary, the "Stereo" audio approach involves using a pair of audio filters (I prefer Autek QF-1A's) to create a near 180-degree wide listening experience.  Overall, this audio effect in essence creates/generates a "bandpass filter" within which to "play around" inside.

Before writing this Blog, a SEARCH was done regarding Stereo RTTY posts in this Blogspot:

• [X] - (2o22): Stereo-RTTY: Is It Possible? (What can We Do with it?)
• [X] - (2o22): Stereo-RTTY: How can We Leverage It?
• [X] - (2o24): Stereo-RTTY Revisited (Yet Again)
• [X] - (2o20): BLAST from the Past: External Audio Filters I have Known
• [X] - (2o24): Demonstrating the Stereo-Radio concept - for YOUR Satisfaction
• [X] - (2o24): Using Stereo Ssb in Worldwide DX Contests
• [X] - (2o24):  BLASTS from the PAST: Stereo CW and it's many Variants.

With RTTY, because we use 2 (170-hz separated) tones, we can adjust the individual filters to "peak" those tones in each ear.  Stations who call in off-frequency will be attenuated to the degree that they are off frequency.  The selectivity control on most filters enables us to control the breadth and depth
of that attenuation.

Using the R-I-T control, off-frequency stations can be "centered" by peaking both tones in both ears. 
You should notice a noticeable improvement in the RTTY decoding as the tones are peaked in each ear.  Because RTTY tones are ALWAYS 170-hz apart, the external audio filters can be set to enhance the audio frequency pair of your choosing.

Experimenting with different decoders can also enhance the quality of the decoding process.
Some operators keep 2 or even 3 different decoders running (often on separate screens) with the
hope that at any given moment, one of the decoders will make sense out of seeming-gibberish to the other programs.

Like ANY of the "Stereo" methods I make use of in Radiosport, to get the most out of these methods, spending LoTs of listening time to learn the proper filter adjustments will find you more than ready when the next RTTY contest comes up.

Do YOU run RTTY?

If you're not using Stereo-RTTY, then you are missing out on leveraging 20th-century analog
technology in today's 21st-century radiosport world.  GO ahead - Give it a try.

WQ6X WanGLes YeT AnoTher QRP WPX (Weird Prefix) ConTesT

Of the three WPX (Weird Prefix) contests, the RTTY GiG in February is how it all begins each year.  While the only multipliers are the callsign prefixes, due to the unique point system, ending scores can be in the millions:

One of the CooL things about ALL CQ contests is their 48-hour duration; not
that you have to operate all 48 hours.  

Having 3 opportunities to find openings on 20-15-10 can compensate for solar storm "pollution" and disruptions that often invade
a radiosport contest weekend, as happened during this year's WPX RTTY contest.

The decision was made to run the event from STN-1 @WA6TQT ("Radio Ranch") in Anza, Southern California offering access to the amazing antenna farm loaded w/stacked yagis and a 4-Square 80-meter vertical array.  Rather than switch operations between Alameda and Concord, the 1st 6-hours
of the event were forgone to run the event entirely from Concord.  (An advantage to this QTH is that Cw/RTTY contests can be run from this location wearing wireless headphones, while languishing on the bed, by way of a Logitech wireless keyboard and trackball - altho admittedly at one point I fell asleep causing STN-1's timeout facility to put the station in STBY mode.

In this contest, individual DX countries mean nothing (except 1, 2 or 3 points), while unique callsign prefixes mean everything.  Because WQ6 is unique/desirable WPX prefix, altho running QRP, there were often lines of stations looking for WQ6X's run frequency.  

 Thanks to the Concord location sporting 2 separate WiFi router speeds, I ran the K3/0-Mini on the
5-Ghz connection and the VNC viewer (for remote station control), using the 2.4-Ghz connection.  
The faster connection speed significantly reduced the [so-called] "jitter" in the RTTY transmission
and decoding.

Having an array of pre-programmed function keys ad RTTY buttons on the MMTY RTTY
control app enabled sending specific messages to get the job done.

My biggest beef was with the numerous stations "stealing" my specifically chosen run frequencies
(Ex: 21111.11, 21131.31, 14088.88, 7091.91, etc.).  I PURPOSELY choose those specific run frequencies such that when a station calls CQ Exactly Zero-beat on my run frequency, I KNOW
it is no accident.  WASSUP with THAT?

Another beef involves stations who call in significantly off frequency; then again, that's why transceivers come equipped with R-I-T controls (to tune these stations in).  Because the RX
bandpass is purposely set quite narrow, off frequency RTTY signals are often interpreted as
intending to be for someone else.  Using the Stereo-RTTY method, off-frequency signals can
be shifted from the extreme Left/Right side of the listening experience to becoming more evenly centered.  The [F3] N1MM function key issues a {ClearRit} command once the contact is safely
in the log.

Before-during-after the WPX GiG, we were plagued w/remnants and variants of solar noise,
inducing fading, making "repeats" necessary.  Unfortunately, using [D]NR to process the noise,
more-or-less disrupted RTTY decoding, making it a worthless liability.  

Despite beliefs to the contrary, Solar Cycle 25 is far from over.  Reading many 3830 comments
from Southern California operators, there seems to be a consensus that high K-index indicators
littered the entire radiosport weekend.  To make the noise less audibly-irritating, after the audio
was "successfully" decoded, it was run thru an MFJ-784 DSP unit (Left ear) and an MFJ-752
"Signal Enhancer" (Right ear) to "soften" the sound somewhat.

As we enter the final hour, my desperate goal was to log contact #500.  Alas, Space-WX
and internet dropouts conspired against that goal, resulting in 499 QSOs being logged.

While I was sad to see it all come to a swift end, it was a relief when it was all over. 
According to 3830Scores, WQ6X took 4th-place overall and 2nd-place for USA/N.A.,
which is not bad for operating only 24 hours of a 48-hour event.

DiD YOU work the 2o26 WPX RTTY Contest?

Is WQ6X in YOUR LoG?

WQ6X Wangles a Divergent 5-Contest Weekend

This 5-contest weekend engaged many divergent operating modes implemented by 2 computers
at W7AYT's Concord QTH.  While the Windoze-7 computer is capable of running RTTY effectively,
the firmware is so ancient that it does not "see" the 5-Ghz wireless router, only the antiquated 2.4-Ghz signal.

The decision was made to connect the RRC-1258 interface unit to the faster 5-Ghz router by
way of a Windoze-11 computer borrowed from my Alameda office to run remota from Ramona. 
While internet access was dramatically improved over the previous weekend, there were numerous
"2-second dropouts" throughout the weekend.  Nonetheless, 5 radiosport events made into the 2o26 Logbook.

• [X] VTQP - (Starting @4pm Friday in PST)
• [X] XE-RTTY - (Starting @4am Saturday in PST)
• [X] MNQP - (Starting @6am Saturday in PST)
• [X] BCQP - (Starting @8am Saturday in PST)
• [X] NA SPRINT Cw - (Starting @4pm Saturday in PST)

While the hosts of the VT QSO Party don't like me pointing out the obvious, lack of in-state CW/Ssb participation is always a disappointment.  Their response to my 2o25 soapbox entry deserves my obvious response.

The above response boasts that 33 VT stations were on the air during last year's event (Really?  THAT many?), however my running QRP has nothing to do with my hearing only 6 stations on traditional HF modes (IMO FT4 and FT8 are HARDLY conventional).  Over 48 hours of OP-time, 
I would expect to hear 2x to 3x last year's 33-station count.  If there in fact WERE more hearable stations, they would end up on the spotting bandmap.  My goal was NOT to run remote from other states, ONLY from California.  My moving to the East coast is NoT the answer to not enough CW/Ssb stations.

Rather than make ridiculous recommendations for me, the contest committee should be soliciting
in-state VT participation beginning in September, for the following February event.

Behind the scenes was questionable Space-WX.  Despite the "GREEN" reports,
the higher bands were considerably noisy and full of fast-fading, requiring numerous
EXCHG repeats.

When it was all over, it would seem that WQ6X made MANY 1st-place scores, altho we
will not be sure until each contest publishes their ending results, as many OPs don't use
the Scoreboard or submit their scores to the 3830 website.

DiD YOU work the 5-Contest weekend?

Is WQ6X in YOUR LoG?

BLAST from the Past: LooKing Back at Radiosport 2025

 Scrolling thru the WQ6X contest submissions to the 3830 Scores website, it would seem that
142 events were engaged in during the year, 2nd only to 2o20, where 144 submissions were listed. 
The majority of events run remotely (from Anza or Ramona); there were actually less than a dozen
events run "live and in living color" from the SF Bay Area.

QRP has been a major operating category of remote operations, thanks to excellent hilltop
locations and outstanding antenna configurations at those locations.  Most of the live operations
I have operated all sported compromised antenna configurations, making QRP running completely
non-viable.

Breaking things down into significant categories makes it much easier for an at-a-glance LooK.
As it turned out, nearly 2/3's of the events were run QRP.  Virtually ALL of the new records set
during 2025 were accomplished running QRP power.  AMAZING!

In summary, 2o15 represents the most varied array of radiosport conglomerances of any previous
radiosport year.

DiD YOU work WQ6X in the year 2o25?

WQ6X Weasels another Weird NA SPRINT Ssb Contest.

Logistical screw-ups in my operating world found me starting this GiG late (1st QSO happened at 00:52z on 20-meters).  The original idea was to run the NA SPRINT contest GiG from my Alameda office, except that the RRC-1258 (internet interface) box was left in Concord.  The solution was to bring the K3/0-Mini control head to Concord and run from there, except the internet connection in Concord was horribly spotty, especially compared to the barely passable internet access in Alameda.

During Ssb contests, spotty internet can be worked around by properly recording the transceiver's four voice memories in advance using a "clean" internet connection.  While on Sunday I rewired the external audio filter conglomeration in Concord, using the pair of MFJ-752 "Signal Enhancer" units on the K3 audio line was enough to dramatically improve Ssb intelligibility.

The "difficult" aspect of the contest was not on my end, but on the other end of the QSO connection.  WQ6X's QRP (5-watt) signal was often QSB'd out of existence.  Stations all too often, gave up, all too soon.  If I suddenly disappeared on you (only to come back 5 minutes later as if nothing happened), disappearing internet was behind that.

While the operating goal was 100+ QSOs, considering the contributions from poor Space-WX
and nasty internet, managing 54 logged QSOs was indeed an operating miracle.

IRONICALLY, while conditions and internet were HORRIBLE, according to 3830 cores, WQ6X

managed a 1st-place win for the QRP category, valid until an OP submits a higher non-3830 score.

DiD YOU work the NA SPRINT Ssb contest?

Is WQ6X in YOUR Log?

WQ6X Sprints thru some ThoTs on the North American SPRINT Contest

Feb 1st being situated on a Saturday brings us the 1st NA Sprint (Ssb] contest of the year. 
Being only 4-hours, Sprint operations are the epitome of Get-in - Exchange - Get-out operations. 
With the exception of the serial # in the exchange, everything else is "canned" and CAN be stored
in Voice Memory #2 in the remote K3 transceiver.

Unlike the East coast, on the West coast, operations are sequentially simple: open the contest
on 20-meters; approx. ~90-minutes later move down to 40-meters for ~90-minutes and slip in
80/75 meters in more-or-less the last hour. or so.

With its special QSY rule, the run frequency advantage is spread out amongst the different players
in the contest.  The downside of this (especially for OPs running QRP like me) is that we often get walked on by HP and even LP stations.  As the contest progresses, the WQ6X callsign becomes
a more valued commodity and stations are often more accommodating of weaker signals.

Similar to the NAQP GiGs, the Sprint exchanges include Name / State, making it more
personable. The serial # gives us an idea of how we stand in relation to other operators.

LooKing back on recent QRP SPRINT runs, it would seem that WQ6X is capable
of QRP survival amidst the NA SPRINT pandemonium.

While I look forward to NA Sprint GiGs, after 4-hours of pandemonium,
I am also relieved to be done with it all.

Do YOU work the NA SPRINT Contests?

Is WQ6X in YOUR Log?

WQ6X Triple-OPs the Winter Field Day Weekend

The 4th weekend in January is another one of those "mixed-bag" radiosport contest periods.  

Because the Winter Field Day (WFD) is a part of this weekend, I wrote a look back on the WFD
event itself.  [CLICK HERE] to read that retrospective.

On the agenda for the weekend was a blend of

• [X] - CQ-160 Cw Contest
• [X] - BARTG RTTY Sprint Contest
• [X] - Winter Field Day (WFD)

The backdrop for these events was a mixture of Space-WX anomalies, not to mention internet dropouts at my Alameda office as well as the Concord location where the contest operations ended on Sat/Sun.

Despite the crippled "TRI-Square antenna array at the Anza location (WA6TQT), running approximately 90-watts made for a reasonably LOUD signal, except the actual direction(s) it was heard was never really known.  The surprise (from the west coast standpoint) was working into the Caribbean and even PY5 / PJ2.

When things finally thinned out (around 09:00z) a sleep break for 4 hours offered one more shot at the newcomers as the daylight slowly swept across the North American continent.  When that was over a brief sleep the found me at the Alameda hospital with members of the Amateur Radio Club
of Alameda (ARCA) as we were given an instructive tour of the K6QLF repeater system atop the
5th floor of the hospital building.

Leaving the club meeting behind a stop was made at the California Historical Radio Society (CHRS) where Deny (AE6Y) was giving a tour of the W6CF amateur radio station.  If you've never been to the CHRS museum, you are TRULY missing out.  How fortunate their museum building as a mere 2-block walk from my Alameda office.

Currently, the only way to run RTTY remotely is from my Alameda office. 
The decision was made to run the WFD GiG (Cw only), throughout Saturday afternoon,
eventually switching over to RTTY for a handful of hours, just enough to say "I Wuz THERE!". 
With that, the plan was to make the journey back to Concord finishing the WFD and 160 contests
from there.

As it turns out, this year's BARTG Sprint was a disastrous disappointment.  At 02:00z, tuning
around 20-meters found the usual RTTY frequency segments to be littered w/non-RTTY signals. 
(It was suggested those were all WFD FT-8 stations - not able to decode FT-8, who knows?) 
Finding no BARTG CQ calls, the move was made down to 40-meters found the same morass
of non-RTTY signals, altho over 40-minutes, 20 BARTG stations were worked amidst the morass
of digital cacophony.  Because I could only run RTTY from my office, once I left there, the BARTG RTTY Sprint was effectively over.

Back in Concord, firing up the CQ-160 contest (05:00z) for a 2nd evening, like BARTG, was largely
a disappointment.  It seemed as if the Eastern half of the continent went to bed early.  And, where were the Canadians?  HuH?  After an hour, there was nothing left - BEDTIME.  While JA stations could be heard (but not worked) on Saturday morning, the band never opened to Asia on Sunday. 
No amount of diddling w/the the Tri-Square directions made any difference.  For all intents and purposes, the Triple-OP weekend was over.

A consistent backdrop for the entire weekend were the Space-WX storms creating rapid fading
and various geomagnetic noise anomalies.  Solar Cycle-25 is FAR from over.

DiD YOU work the above 3 radiosport contests?

Is WQ6X in Your LoG?

WQ6X Wonders about Winter Field Day Weekend

En-route to Alameda to setup a remote run of the now annual Winter Field Day (WFD) and the BARTG RTTY Sprint contests, I got to musing over this particular weekend from years past - a
sort of Blast from the Past look.  Unlike the ARRL [summer] Field Day GiG in June, the January WFD event is more a worldwide event than just a domestic one.  Indeed, it is run by the Winter Field Day Association.  ([CLICK HERE] to see their website and [CLICK HERE] to read the rules.)

While the Winter Field Day event has been around for over 10 years, it would seem that
WQ6X has only engaged in this GiG twice:

• [X] - 2o25 - WQ6X Wings yet another Weird Winter Field Day
• [X] - 2o24- WQ6X Works another Weird (but WooLY) Winter Field Day

(2o24)- WQ6X Works another Weird (but WooLY) Winter Field Day

It's actually surprising to me that I didn't officially discover the WFD event until 2024,
when you consider that the GiG has been around since 2015.

(2o25) - WQ6X Wings yet another Weird Winter Field Day

The enjoyment of running the 2024 WFD GiG encouraged me to do it again.

 

And of course, (2o25) becomes (2o26).

StaY TuNeD to find out how 2o26 turned out.

WQ6X Works a Weirdly Noisy QRP NAQP Ssb Contest

For several days leading up to the NAQP Ssb contest, Space-WX condx. have been all over the chart.  The question was, how would NAQP fit into all of this.  The decision was to run the Ramona radio remotely from my Alameda office using the K3/0 mini remote-control head.  Arriving after the 18:00z starting time, the decision was made to forego the 1st hour of the contest - 1/2 of the required 2-hour off period for Single-OP stations.

That 1st off hour offered the opportunity to triple-check the RRC box cabling and the N1MM+
keyboard macros, as well as re-recording the K3 voice memories w/heavier audio "punch",
helping the QRP signal to sound MUCH LOUDER - the caveat was fast-fade QSB.

At 19:00z, ten meters was more-or-less wide-open.  The operating plan was to work 10-meters
until no more "new" stations were left, moving down to 15-meters and eventually 20-meters. 
Later, coming back to 10-meters found it gone and as it turned out 15-meters was also dead. 
That relegated operating strategy to running 20-meters, while looking for an "early" opening
on 40-meters.  The backdrop for all this was varying levels of geomagnetic noise and fast-fading
on all bands.

Some overall highlights regarding the 2o26 NAQP Ssb contest come to mind.

• Obnoxious Space-WX plagued the 12-hour contest.  The upside (if you can call it that) is that Space-WX conditions became horribly WORSE in the 2-ays after the contest event, with a K-Index as high as8 and an A-Index as high as 73.  wOw!
  
  
• The 04:00z to 05:00z time period produced a flood of purposely obnoxious QRM, such as Mr. BELCH on 71.82.82 and FAX/SSTV QRM which followed me from 7175.75 to 7177.77 and back to 7175.75 again.
  
  
• At 05:23z signal level suddenly "jumped up" by over 20db and stayed way til the end
  of the contest.  At first I thought it was some sort of anomaly with the transceiver or the
  Shorty-40 yagi, except that he was also noticeable on 75-meters.  Since then, the radio and yagi have not manifested any hardware anomalies.
  
  
• While we are used to unique names as part of the exchange in NAQP GiGs, the Ssb
  mode makes it possible to utilize totally computer-generated voices in away somewhat analogous to logging software auto-sending Cw.  On 40-meters Saturday evening N3QE was running a frequency using the name "Tina".  The voice was clearly AI-generated.
  In either case, a human operator is needed (indeed required) to interpret the response
  on both ends of the QSO.
  
  
• The usual NAQP disappointments included the lack of hearable (much less workable) stations on 75-meters.  By the time the band opens on the West coast, many stations eastward have already made their 75-meter QSOs and are winding down during the
  final 2-hours of the contest.
  Then again, equally lacking was participation by West coast and Northwest stations overall, as well as a dearth of VE stations.  We could argue that on the high bands
  my signals skipped over those areas, but not on 40 and 80 meters with solar noise
  as the background.  On those bands, it makes no sense that I can work the East
  coast, but not the Northwest.

When it was all over, depending on what screen(s) you look at, WQ6X either took 3rd, 4th
or 5th place for the Single-OP Assisted QRP category.

DiD YOU work the 2o26 NAQP Ssb contest?

Is WQ6X in YOUR LoG?