This is exactly how it's supposed to operate. There IS a character which you can send from the paddles to make it switch out of transmit and that is dit dit dah dah sent as one character (dididadah) that will switch immediately back to receive. The "Idle" is called "diddle" in the RTTY world and is either continuous "letters shift" or "blank" characters which were used to keep the mechanical decoders on real teletype machines active and introduce less distortion, thus cause less missed characters during the receiving of slow typing.
Welcome to the world of RTTY. There is a free program out there dedicated to RTTY that works very well with the K3 and others called MMTTY, written a few years ago by a Japanese ham, Mako Mori, JE3HHT. It has, probably the best FFT decoding algorithm for RTTY available and once you get it set up it works right down almost to the noise (just like the K3). Google MMTTY and get version 1.68a which is the latest. You might want to also look at W3YY's website and think about the little interface he has available. It isn't cheap, about 30 bucks shipped, but it's an opto isolated PTT, CW and FSK keying interface (only for transmit) that will interface the computer to the K3 (needs a second RS-232 port) for sending true FSK (that way the dial freq in FSK-D) will match the MARK frequency on RTTY. Also, the international standard for RTTY is to send it using LSB or it will be sent inverted and you will have to use RTTY Reverse in the program to copy. The W3YY interface hooks up to FSK, PTT and Ground using the 15 pin VGA style plug on the back of the K3, the CW out of the YY would plug in to the Hand Key jack on the back of the K3. I've no fianancial connection to W3YY, but have been using one of the interfaces ever since getting the K3 and since I operate a lot of RTTY, it makes things much easier. Jim Sheldon, W0EB > I'm not at all familiar with rtty, > but decided to try a little in the NAQP rtty today. > > I made a few successful contacts using my key in the FSK D mode > > My question is > once I key the K3 and send something (like my call for example) > after the letters are sent > it seems like there is a switch to an idling mode or something??? > and there is a 4-5 second tail of transmissions > with no letters being sent > before the K3 quits transmitting > > this lasts a long time maybe 4-5 seconds > other signals I am hearing don't sound like they switch > to this idling noise with no letters being sent > they just send their letters and then quit transmitting > > I can stop this idling transmission short > by taping the xmit button > > please enlighten me what is going on here > is there a setting I need to change somewhere in the k3? > to stop this, or is it normal, or, or, or, ??? lol > > I'm sure this is common knowledge to those familiar with rtty, > but I'm new to this mode, > and also new to sending it with the K3, > as well as sending rtty with the code key > > TIA ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
