*Cleaned my Kimber 1911
*Cleaned my wife's TRR-8 revolver
And started building the little "Digital Modes Sound Card Interface" for the Kenwood TS-940 we use on the Iowa for CW. The guy who donated it used to be a RTTY operator "Back In The Day", and was blown away when I told him you no longer need a "HAL Interface"
and a lumbering Model 19 Teletype machine to operate Radio Teletype ("RTTY") any longer.
These days, a PC is used to generate and decode audio frequencies corresponding to "Mark" and "Space", and the audio signals are sent to/received from the audio circuits of the radio.
The "nice" thing about doing it this way is that you're no longer limited by the hardware you have to just RTTY. You can also transmit and receive Slow Scan TV, PSK-31, WEFAX, and many other "Digital Modes" on the ham bands.
After I finish and test the little interface, I'll post a few pictures of it.
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I still miss "The quick brown fox" and RYRYRYRYRYRYRY
ReplyDeleteTerry
Fla.
I had a model 19 in high-school. Took three of us to get it downstairs into the basement, and my parent's forbid me to operate it after 8:30 PM!
DeleteOld school vs. new school... And how much knowledge is being lost???
ReplyDeleteThe knowledge is in books. The hands-on knowledge of keeping the old equipment working is somewhat limited, but out there if you need it.
DeleteOne of the Grey Radio Gang on the Iowa is a guru on teletype printers, reperferators, and other ancillary gear. He's gone through all the RTTY gear, and done the maintenance on the best of it, and tagged the others as "needs more work", or "beyond help"!
The main problem for us, is that the ribbons, paper, and paper tape are hard to come by, and expensive. It's still out there, but ONLY available in "case lots". We have several rolls of tape and paper, and all of the ribbons are "serviceable", but if we get the radio room on the tour route (planned for sometime in 2015), we'll be burning through our supply pretty quickly, as the current plan is to be able to print out customized souvenir pages and a strip of the tape for those that request it.
We'll only have ONE machine running, as to fire them all up would be deafening!
For times the radio room isn't manned, we're going to have a 32" monitor running a video loop showing what goes on when people are there.
What is the model of the TTY machine? I might have used one in a past life in the Chair Force.
ReplyDeleteGary
MSGT, USAF, Ret.
Gary....check my latest post!
Delete