Friday, July 19, 2024

Stereo-RTTY Revisited (Yet Again)

It could be said that the "Stereo Radio" concept is actually BEST EXPRESSED when running
a RTTY CONTEST.  Having recently upgraded the antenna system @W7AYT's QTH in the SF
East Bay (Grid-Square: CM87xx), the decision was made to run the 2024 summer NAQP RTTY contest from this configuration while fully leveraging the Stereo-Audio setup that is a prominent
part of the operation there.  The IARU HF Championship gave the Stereo-CW method a thorough test.  Two Blogs emerged from that operation:

  • [X] - Using Stereo-CW When Running Pile-UPs
  • [X] - WQ6X Leverages Stereo-CW for 2024 IARU HF Championship

My filter combination of choice for nearly 10 years has been a pair of old-school Autek QF-1A SSB/CW/AM analog audio filters.  Using the PEAK Filter, Stereo-CW and Stereo-RTTY are
easily accommodated.  The LowPass (and sometimes HighPass) filters are the Secret to
running Stereo-SSB - [CLICK HERE] to read more about Stereo-SSB.

As a function of the FREQUENCY knobs on the Autek QF-1A filters, we can PEAK
the  individual MARK/SPACE tones, specifically for each ear, which determines the
[so-called] "position" of each tone in the listening experience.
With the SELECTIVITY knobs we can fine-tune the amplitude of each tone individually. 
The Aux. Notch filters can be used to null any offending carriers or noises in each ear
individually.

Once everything is properly setup, spend some time tuning around the different bands and modes.  The aural-spatial effects are subtly AMAZING.  Properly done, tuning a signal towards zero-beat shifts the signal from the left side to the right (or right-side to the left-side) of the listening experience.  

With weak signals, using RiT can reposition that signal in the listening experience
to match the Stereo-CW filter frequency settings for that moment in time. 
Correctly done, the signal peaks and literally "jumps out" of the RX-Passband.

Do YOU Play around in RTTY Contests?

Has the idea of running Stereo-RTTY ever occurred to you?


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