ARRL RTTY Roundup Jan 2-3 2021 the old fashioned way.

Using a 60 year-old model 28 ASR Teletype machine in a modern-day RTTY contest.

[@Duckilicious]

THANK YOU FOR SHARING, BILL! I dabble in the land of both radio and vintage electronics so I'm really glad for the existence of RTTY and the fact that it is still used in modern day!

[@danbader3578]

Brings back memories. I was a Radioman in the Navy for 16yrs... Wow !!! Kewl video..

[@yinglyca1]

I used to love decoding rtty in the late 1980s with a comodore 64 and a dot matrix printer. Never enough paper lol

[@Duckilicious]

Do you know the name of the program you used? I have a C64 and a printer for it an it would be incredible if I could decode RTTY with the thing.

[@lawrencegodek8583]

In the 70's i learned TTY maintenance and picked up a 28 ASR for use with my Drake twins. Lots of picture transmissions in those days. Put a fan on top of the T4X PA cage and go to town. having a 4 el 20M beam really made a difference when doing pictures. I sure miss those days, no more machines here because of my age It was a great time.

[@vacuumfireradio253]

Great concept - you should receive 10 times the credit for each QSO...

[@W9PDS]

Agreed!

[@Darryl_Frost]

I love the model 28, such a fine bit of engineering, I spent over a year maintaining them for a major Navy comms station in the early 80's, I see you use chadded tape, do you splice tape by aligning marks and connecting them through the TD head? How do you go with the consumables and spare parts? Good video, I would subscibe but you have 73 subs, seems like a nice number. I'm a 60 year old Navy Radio Technician, Royal Australian Navy. 73 good sir.

[@oldfellowstoys3084]

I use the special splicer made for the chadded tape. I get spare parts from "MR RTTY" - RTTY Electronics here in California. I got a good supply of paper tape and roll paper when I bought the machine - enough to last a lifetime.

[@IMDunn-oy9cd]

Back in 1983, I was required to type out at 30 wpm on one of those. It was just a matter of learning the correct rhythm in the keystrokes.

[@Darryl_Frost]

I hope you had a good tech to set up your keyboard, it would make or break a typing test. I learnt to touch type on a model 28.

[@IMDunn-oy9cd]

@@Darryl_Frost We had a good supply of maintenance guys who kept them in pretty good shape. Us operator types were concerned with speed and cutting accurate tapes.

[@Darryl_Frost]

@@IMDunn-oy9cd I was a tech, I was always impressed by the skill of the operators, I was with the Royal Australian Navy in the early 80's.

[@IMDunn-oy9cd]

@@Darryl_Frost Ah, US Navy. Operated with one of your frigates in the Red Sea in 91.

[@lawrencegodek8583]

Forgot, in 1976 i think it was Dovetron was giving away one of their converters for the ham who would be the first to work WAS during the year. I didn't win one, later found this was illegal by the FCC, i did get WAS using my ASR. There were several weather and news stations using 50 and 100WPM 24 hours a day. One with weather was in Florida. I'd let my machine run all day while was at work copying their data and when i got home afterwards i'd roll it all up and throw it in the trash. Gave the machine a real workout at 100WPM.

[@Falkenroth1]

Very nice.

[@markg6jvy135]

Love it 👍👏👏

[@U812-k7j]

That's too funny I know N6WM he's a big contester in California.

[@robertwolfiii8711]

You look like Clint Eastwood

[@demizer1968]

Sweet. I miss working on those beasts 😁

[@Darryl_Frost]

Me too, such a fine machine to work on, engineering done right.

[@robertwolfiii8711]

They are Real mothers that can write to your Mother

[@davebernhardt6679]

See you wrkd K6UM on other side of PDX from me. Using TS-520 w/dipoles & HP computer, XP OS. No heat in shack, but wasn't too cold that weekend. See how WX will be for WPX. CUL from CN85uj

[@Anabasis75]

OT, but have you ever hooked that 28 ASR to the ALTAIR 8000 as a terminal or to load code?

[@oldfellowstoys3084]

No, but I have used the M33 ASR to do just that.

[@richardhaas39]

M28 is Baudot (Murray). M33 is ASCII.

[@robertwolfiii8711]

Give it little bit