On 23/09/2024 03:55, David Ranch, KI6ZHD via groups.io wrote:
For all you RTTY / Teletype fans out there, this is a fantastic video
Takes me back to my youth. School radio club was run by a teacher into RTTY. So I grew up from 11-18 on AR88, CR100, B40 receivers and Teletype models 14, 15 & 28s as well as British Creed 7Bs. We used US CV89A FSK units. The built in 1in scope made tuning noisy signals easier. As a kid I wanted to play with computers and solid state stuff but there no computers and most gear used valves(tubes) and radio and RTTY was the next best thing.
Teletype 28 was my favourite unit. We had 2 of them both KSR units. Plenty of TTY15 page printers and a complete TTY19 which was a TTY15 ASR unit and an extra tape TD unit on a metal table strong enough to take the weight. The PSU used a mercury rectifier so there was a light show in time to the selector magnets clicking.
They were all set for 45.45 baud commercial speeds and so we'd copy news output from behind the Iron Curtain, Tanjug and TASS being the easiest signals to copy. I can remember copying some class propaganda about "American imperialists and fascists" from an Albania news source. Even as a kid with limited understanding of world politics it was funny to read.
I last used a real Teletype in 1979, 45 years back. The last few years there has been a demonstration teletype running at the Friedrichshafen Rally. The smell of warm machine oil and the clackety-clack made me feel 50 years younger. That was a Siemens 100 which is similar in looks to a TTY15 page printer but quieter.
RTTY with a PC holds no interest compared to RTTY with a real TTY.
Andy
