RTTY contesting & WF1B

    Hello RTTY contesting friend,

    If you are new one or well known RTTY contester I hope that you find this page helpful in some cautions. If you´ll find some info wrong please let me know. I´m only the human being.

    Because WF1B shout down his website and there was a lot of changes and problems with WF1B software during this year
( 2001 ) I decided to prepare this page in order to have it all in one place for you.

If you wish to try RTTY contesting ( I can suggest to try it ), please read the rules of contest first.

CONTEST RULES & RESULTS


 RTTY Journal by W6/G0AZT http://www.rttyjournal.com/contests/index.htm
SM3CER contest service center  http://www.sk3bg.se/contest/
LA9HW pages http://home.online.no/~janalme/RTTY.html

WF1B software, manual, utilities etc...

 It is still good for example for OK DX contest when select EA RTTY contest by old rules WF1B version 5.00
 The EA part of v 5.01 has bugs :-(
Check out the Rules at http://www.rttyjournal.com  sent to me by EA1MV in September 2000.
1: No QSO points are given for working your own DXCC country, DL to DL, W to W, JA to JA, etc.
Two of the Spanish province abbreviations are incorrect. PM should be IB and OR should be OU. Assuming that all EA stations will be sending the correct abbreviations as per U.R.E recommendations, after all they sponsor the contest, if you log IB and/or OU, no multiplier credit will be given. The saving grace is that Antonio, EA1MV will be using WT4I's contest tools to Cabrillorise all received logs. When the converted logs are run through Bruce's log checking software, the above errors will all be corrected and appropriate QSO points will be credited. So, the bottom line is, if Ray doesn't come out with a new version in time, enter the contest, have fun, submit your log and summary sheet WITHOUT making any amendments to either file.When the results are published, your scores should improve considerably compared to the WF1B's summary sheet's claims. I bet than doesn't happen very often :-)   Eddie, W6/G0AZT.
WF1B version 5.01
 solved some bugs of previous version
 It has these 3 changes in it:
  - can click on serno
  - changed PM to IB
  - changed OR to OU
WF1B version 5.02 
 You can use this cabrillo for your contest logs  converter
 Manual for V4.5 in PDF format manual
 K7WM prepared new which is up-dated contest callsign database ( updated 09/2001) master.cal
 SM6BSK prepared the  which converts ALL files to CABRILLO format for CQ WW/RJ contest
 Hi all "DX",
>IF YOU ARE DX DO NOT EVEN SEND IN LOGS USING THE SM6BSK CABRILLO CONVERTER
>UNLESS AND ONLY UNLESS THE QTH FIELD IN YOUR WF1B .INI FILE SAYS QTH=DX.
>THE SM6BSK CONVERTER NEEDS TO SEE "DX" IN THE QTH FIELD  IN THE ASCII OUTPUT
>FROM WF1B.  SIMPLY PUTTING "DX" IN THE ARRL SECTION OF THE CONVERTER WILL
>NOT WORK
For your information, I have made a fix to this. Now it works if you put "DX" in the ARRL-SECTION.
The file is available for downloading at SM3CER:s Contest Site http://www.sk3bg.se/contest/
73 de Nils, SM6BSK   email: [email protected]
utility

Runtime Error 200

DK> OK...so does someone write some code to compensate for clocking
DK> or do I give up on the idea of using WF1B?

DK>     When trying to run the demo of WF1B I experience the following error:
DK>     Runtime error 200 at 0027:10F0.
DK>     I am running 98SE, on an AMD Athlon 750.
DK>     Is this anything I can fix?

Try this little utility attached to this mail.
The "Runtime Error 200" appears on newer, too fast PCs, it is due to a a Borland Pascal internal bug, actually the bad code is located inside the inizialization code of the CRT unit and the programmer can do nothing to prevent it, of course a solution could be avoiding the use of that unit but this would give the programmer a head ache cause that unit has too many useful functions, hi.
This little utility will try to locate the bad code inside the executable files and patch it, the syntax is very easy:
RTTYFIX <filemask>

i.e. RTTYFIX *.EXE will search inside every executable file in the current directory and eventually apply the patch.

You better make a backup copy of your directory before executing RTTYFIX, I had not much time to write it so I didn't write the code to automatically backup the files before applying the patch...you'll have to do the backup by yourself! hi I have tried to run WF1B demo patched on a PIII 700 MHz and it runs ok, let me know if it works on your machine too.
--------------------------------------------------
I will not belch the National Anthem.
--------------------------------------------------
Ciao.
          Steve, IK4WMH
          mailto:[email protected]

rttyfix.zip



Runtime error 200 is caused by the fast processor in the newer computers and trying to open a DOS program, I had the same problem here also with a 800 MHz computer, you can try two things, one is to open several programs before trying to open RTTY and then keep trying to open RTTY, it will usually will work, but it will maybe take several tries, another way is to get a program
called Mo'Slo, available at, http://www.hpaa.com/moslo, they have two different versions that you can try, one is free trial version, and another is one that cost $25, I was not able to get the free version to work here,but the one for $25 did work fine, it will just slow your computer for the program that you are going to open, not the whole computer, it is also useful for any DOS programs that you may want to run and not able to open, I found that it helped with another DOS program that I had here, when I first got this new computer here I thought that maybe that was the end of using the RTTY program, but much to my delight it is now working fine here, it will take a little learning as to how to make Mo'Slo work but it will be worth it, if you are able to program a batch file, that will make starting RTTY with Mo'Slo a lot easier and quicker. As for the run time error 216 that you are getting, this is not as serious, I
do not recall what I did for that, but it seems that I remember is conflict with your setup in RTTY.INI file with your system, such as a comport in use.

Hope this helps.
73, Vince  K6BIR



This morning I did a test of the time saved by using a hyphen in place of a
space.  I ran RTTY by WF1B and the exchanges I used were:

<CR>W1AW 599 001 001<CR>  time=4.4 seconds
and
<CR>W1AW 599-001-001<CR>  time=4.0 seconds

I measured the output of a second receiver on a Tektronix 2225 scope using .5s/div sweep.The time measurements were as close as I could tell by eye.  More precise measurements could of course be made with a storage scope.As expected, the second exchange was shorter.  The extra time in the first exchange is caused by the figs shift character transmitted right after each
space when USOS is used at the transmitter.  Each character in the Baudot code takes about 163ms, or 326ms when two figs characters are used as in the first example.  My measurement confirms that only two, not four, figs characters are being sent.  Someone earlier on the reflector thought there were four. As far as which one to use, that remains for the user to decide.  Neither one is perfectly right - the longer one is more likely to print correctly when the original figs character is lost, and the shorter one prints more quickly.  Over the course of a 1000-QSO contest, the extra 326ms will cost you 326 seconds, or five minutes and 26 seconds.  Is this worth saving some repeats?  I honestly don't know.  Some will say yes and some will say that there is a lot of dead
time in a contest anyway, so five minutes lost doesn't matter.  I really don't know which is right.Hope this helps dispel some confusion about the timing, anyway.

73, Bill W7TI


OTHER INTERESTING SITES

Very good site for RTTY users is " RTTY info" - http://www.RTTYINFO.net/

Waldemar DK3VN prepared also very nice website concerning to RTTY contesting. You´ll find there some useful tips
RTTY World Ranking List created and managed by DK3VN

DJ3NG creates the following WEB World RTTY contests scene Database for international Rtty Results - http://www.qsl.net/dj3ng/

Some experiencies and tips are published on AA5AU website   http://www.geocities.com/aa5au/rtty.html

RTTYcontestting reflector http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/rtty

KI6DY Home is  here

W5BBR Home is here http://www.w5bbr.com/index.html
 

If you´d like to try use WF1B with MMTTY you can find how to do it here on the website of Phil GU0SUP
http://www.guernsey.net/~pcooper/emulate.html



Other RTTY contesting software

If you do not wish to use WF1B for contesting, you can use several other programs as:

WRITELOG - http://www.writelog.com/

               http://www.k9jy.com/

RCKRtty   http://www.rckrtty.de/

OH2GI     http://www.kolumbus.fi/jukka.kallio/

You can also use MMTTY  http://www.qsl.net/mmhamsoft/mmtty/index.html  SW but this otherway perfect piece of SW is not designed for contesting
 

                                                                                                        GL & CUL on my screen - Olda


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