[GreenKeys] RE: GreenKeys Digest, Vol 52, Issue 22

Tue May 20 10:23:40 EDT 2008

Thank you for the post Dave on the teletype machine And Don gives a lot of
info on teletype machines.
  Wish you guys were closer too western WI ellsworth like too get my
teletype too print out emails been my dream.Its funny young people look at
the teletype whats that.It nice people take care of the old teletype,enjoyed
reading your post Dave.I fire mine up type on it keep it going so it don't
lock up from just sitting there thank you all for the storys enjoy them   
 Thank you Jim Ellsworth WI Yes mine is my pc room I take care of it

-----Original Message-----
From: greenkeys-bounces at mailman.qth.net
[mailto:greenkeys-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of
greenkeys-request at mailman.qth.net
Sent: Tuesday, May 20, 2008 3:02 AM
To: greenkeys at mailman.qth.net
Subject: GreenKeys Digest, Vol 52, Issue 22

Send GreenKeys mailing list submissions to
	greenkeys at mailman.qth.net

To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
	http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/greenkeys
or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
	greenkeys-request at mailman.qth.net

You can reach the person managing the list at
	greenkeys-owner at mailman.qth.net

When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
than "Re: Contents of GreenKeys digest..."

Today's Topics:

   1. Welcome to Greenkeys (Don Robert House)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Tue, 20 May 2008 00:29:18 -0500
From: Don Robert House <k9tty at dls.net>
Subject: [GreenKeys] Welcome to Greenkeys
To: "David Effa" <wd9itr at arrl.net>
Cc: Greenkeys <greenkeys at mailman.qth.net>
Message-ID: <98F2A660-2E72-4AAE-8D47-BAF4B1F28970 at dls.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed; delsp=yes

Nice write up Dave,

Glad to have you aboard.  Give me a call and we can have lunch and you  
can tour my station.

Don
K9TTY

On 19 May 2008, at 11:56 PM, David Effa wrote:

Hi,

I've received today a few replies from your group and I must say I
feel right at home.  Let me introduce myself and how I got started
with RTTY and teletype.

I live in Grayslake Illinois.  It's north of Chicago about 13 miles
from the Wisconsin border.  I make my livelihood doing support for web
applications and web sites at Abbott Laboratories.  Back when I was in
High School 1971-1975 (Arlington Heights, IL.) a friend of mine
introduce me to a Ham that worked at Motorola as an engineer.  (I was
also big in electronics and used to fix peoples TVs when they had
tubes at the High School!)  In his basement he had a Model 15
teletype.  It was driven by a homemade demod (phased-locked loop
dedicated to FM band reception.  What a engineer would do right?) and
to a "tweaked" Moto radio down to the 2 Meter Amateur band.  It was
receiving weather broadcasts at the time I was there.  I would never
forget the clackly clack of those keys typing away along with the
upshift of the platen.  That mechanical sound along with the RTTY
audio tones has stayed with me forever.

We also visited the local defense center that my town had and they had
I think a Model 28 running there (big sucker) with a big tube receiver
and power supply powering it.  It was quite though when it ran.  That
too was monitoring the weather freq.   It's kinda of weird how all
this came together when I think of it.

My friends and myself looked for teleypes.  I do not remember how we
came across this, but somehow we found out that Teletype (corp.) down
in Blue Island, Illinois was throwing a bunch of them (model 15s) out.
We went down there and on their scape dock they sat.  The only one
that looked in good shape was one, and I swear, in a greenish cabinet
that looked like a postal mailbox.  Well I got that and lugged it back
to my parents house in the basement.  It was a heavy sucker!

The next step was to get a demodulator.  I read about the HAL ST-6 but
it was too expensive at the time for someone in High School.  What I
did was purchase the blank ST-5 PC boards from HAL with the manual for
both the ST-5 and 6 and built it up buying parts and made my own
cabinet to put it in.  I later stole the auto-start logic and another
board from the ST-6 schematic and etched my own PC boards for it.  It
worked great once I tweaked those toroids at a local college
engineering lab. :-)

During that time period I got my Amateur Technician license (the one
with the Morse requirement).  I am a General class license holder now.
I quickly bought a 2M radio that I used and also I had a shortwave
radio to copy ARRL bulletins and anything else I could find.

I have to laugh at this.  I often had the 2M radio and demod in my
second story bedroom and used an extra pair of phone line wires from
the phone jack down to the basement.  I ran that pair to the teletype
printer magnets.  In the middle of the night the house seem to shook
the foundation and you could hear it clunk a long.  Sometimes the bell
would ring if there was a weather warning (kept the weather running
when not doing anything else).  I wonder if weather is still around
using Baudot?

A few years later, that Ham where I first seen a Model 15 offered me
the chance to buy it.  I did and gave the other "mailbox" away.  In
hindsight, I should have keep the mechanics for spare parts.  The new
15 was in good shape and working order.  It is still pretty good but
is has not run in a long time.  I will have to take it apart and lube
it up.  I have a original Teletype manual for it.  The 15 is in an all
black cabinet with a Teletype - Chicago label on it.  It has some
drilled holes on the top of the cabinet which I think someone once had
a paper clutched take-up real on it (need to get one of those.)  It
also has a black stand that it sits on but that has a re-orange stamp
on it with U S over an anchor symbol.  Obviously US Navy.  Not sure
both came together from it's past.  The 15 also has a "here-is" key
under a front flap which you can program to type a limited number of
characters.  Not sure that was part of it because the case flap does
not close all the way because of the perturbing spindle part of it.

Well I went to college, moved out on my own and the 15 sat collection
dust at my parents home.  They decided to move it to another place in
the basement and they cut all my wiring.  I got married (late in life)
and when I bought a house and I finally moved the 15 back to it's real
home.  I never got it running because of this and that and babies
came.  But every time I went down to my basement it's there looking at
me and I can smell the grease from it which causes me to think back to
those simpler days of the past and the world was fine.

A friend down in Tennessee found an old ST-6 a few years ago and I
told him to buy it.  I do not know if it works but I always wanted
one.  A bad sign though.  When I move the box something rattles and
there is a hole drilled on the back of it for someones modification to
it in the past.  But I am going to open it open it up and remove the
op-amps and see it it turns on or smokes.

Well I hit age 51 this year, the kids are getting older and I decided
to get this stuff working again and even expand my collection/hobby if
I can.  I started "Googling" around for RTTY information and I found
you guys through a link on the rtty.com web site.  So here I am!

I was bidding on eBay yesterday for a replacement model 15 keyboard.
Mine got bend up a little in all the moving around but still useable.
I have since learned that the person who won with a bid of $80 is a
member of "GreenKeys".  Congratulations to that person.  I only went
to $25.  Is that kind of price typical for parts?  If so, I got a lot
to catch up on!

Well too much reliving my past.  I hope I did not bore everyone!  I
will enjoy reading the posts here and asking a lot of questions or
advice of fixing and finding equipment I am sure.  I have one offer
already!  Thanks Don.

Best regards,

Dave Effa
wd9itr at arrl.net

.
On Mon, May 19, 2008 at 10:07 PM, Roy Morgan <k1lky at earthlink.net>  
wrote:
>
> On May 19, 2008, at 7:09 PM, Larry Tighe wrote:
>
>> David,
>>
>> There's no doubt you can do better on greenkeys getting parts or a  
>> machine
>> here!  It is good to mention where you live and maybe one of the list
>> members is near and has machines available.
>
> Dave,
>
> Right on.. where do you live?
>
> Roy - now in Northern VA, and about to move to Central New York.
>
> Roy Morgan
> k1lky at earthlink.net
> Lovettsville, VA 20180
>
>
>
>
_______________________________________________
GreenKeys mailing list
GreenKeys at mailman.qth.net
http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/greenkeys

------------------------------

_______________________________________________
GreenKeys mailing list
GreenKeys at mailman.qth.net
http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/greenkeys

End of GreenKeys Digest, Vol 52, Issue 22
*****************************************