NAQP RTTY July, 2025
This contest was exceptionally frustrating. After spending hours on Friday afternoon trying to get my K1EL WinKey to work, I finally gave up and instead went back to my RigExpert TI-3000.
The reason for going with the K1EL Keyer was two-fold: first, to use FSK instead of AFSK for RTTY. My RigExpert TI-5000 bit the dust after many years of service and that did do FSK.
Second, the RigExperts are no longer made, so I wanted to move on to something else that did both CW and RTTY and the K1EL WinKey is (one of) the right interfaces to choose.
Long story short, the reason my WinKey didn’t work is that I didn’t realize that I needed a cable to be built to interface with my 13-pin (!) ACC jack on the back of my Icom 7300. And being here in Nowhere, VT, I’ll need to order something from somewhere to get the right plug.
At 1800 UTC the contest started. I started off on 15-meters, high up in the band as there was another CW contest going on at the same time. It must be the effect of FT8 at 21.074, but the CW folks kept below that frequency and the RTTY folks stayed above it.
And, even though there were lots of signals, I had a difficult time tuning them, much less working people. My receiver would oversaturate and block out the signals, even with my good filters on. Something I need to investigate.
I worked six stations in 15-minutes. Not exactly zooming along. So I moved to 20-meters as 10-meters was dead. The band was better than fifteen, but not by much. I worked only sixteen stations over the next two hours, and then I stopped working the contest. I thought about just ending the contest there and then started to again work on my WinKey integration (this is where I discovered I needed to wire up an interface…duh…).
Then I went to eat some dinner.
I decided to try the contest again. I came back at 2330 UTC and worked three stations on 20-meters, but 20 didn’t sound too good. I moved over to 40-meters and finally got some traction.
I should mention that I have what I call an ‘all-band’ 43-foot vertical that I use on 20-6 meters that has 60 radials around it.
But for 40 and 80-meters, I have a dedicated full-size 40-meter and 80-meter verticals, also with 60 radials around each of them. They typically do well since to beat the vertical (at least at DX), you’d need a 2-element beam or better. And multiband verticals don’t hear as well as my dedicated 40-meter antenna - I compare it to my ‘all-band’ vertical and the dedicated vertical works better all the time. And with 80-meters, there is no comparison.
Anyway, I had a decent run on 40-meters. About 100 contacts over two hours with a few contacts on 80-meters sprinkled in. I always check 80-meters before my local sunset; the antenna just works so well.
After my long stay on 40-meters, I split my time between 40 and 80 until I decided to go to bed at 0400 UTC.
Except for the AFSK, I was happy with how everything worked. I entered the 100-watt category and, since RTTY is full bore on the equipment, I ran my Icom at around 10-watts depending on the band. Then I fed the amplifier so that it it just below 100 watts. This resulted in limited strain on the radio or the amplifier.
And, there are specific advantages of FSK with the Icom 7300. From an AI answer:
Built-in FSK Modulator: The IC-7300 supports true FSK via USB or CI-V, so you can key RTTY directly without external interfaces or sound cards.
Twin Peak Filter (TPF): In RTTY mode, the 7300 enables a dedicated filter optimized for the mark and space tones. This is not available in USB/AFSK mode, making FSK ideal for contesting and crowded band conditions.
Spectrum Scope Alignment: When using FSK, the mark/space tones align perfectly with the 7300’s spectrum scope and MMTTY’s waterfall. With AFSK, the tones can be offset, requiring manual correction.
Stable Baud Rate Support: The 7300 handles the 45.45 baud rate natively in FSK mode, whereas many USB serial adapters struggle with this in AFSK setups.
Simplified Setup: Once configured, FSK operation on the 7300 is more “set and forget,” especially when paired with MMTTY and N1MM Logger+.
I’ll get the cable done and then see how it works.
With just over 150 contacts, my final score was 10,488. I’m not happy with that score, but was happy with the contest.
