In recent years, it would seem that PSK activity has dropped considerably since FT8 parked-up and flashed its shiny gubbins at us. It would seem that speed is everything: Call, Report, 73 QRZ? <repeat to fade>
PSK31 is a relatively slow datamode, mostly macro-driven but can also be used for keyboard<>keyboard QSOs. Should you fancy something with a little more pace, you could just up the speed to PSK63 or PSK125.
But, what if I told you there was another way of making your PSK31 transmissions a bit quicker? Lose the sexy grammar! The example below shows a typical CQ call using PSK31 which takes 9.2 seconds in lower-case but 10.6 seconds if sent upper-case. A whole 1.4 seconds saved by forgetting some basic English skills.
In summary: Lower-case macros are ideal for contests where formatting is not as important as the QSO-rate. My own PZTLog application includes a config option to automatically convert all macros to lower-case so when you’re in “contest mode”, you can send your usual macros with a little bit more speed.
