[GreenKeys] Survey

[Kevin H. Phillips]

I've been hesitant to respond because I thought I'd be the youngest in 
the crowd (as I usually am in my local radio circles) but from the 
responses I see that I am neither the youngest, the most recently 
licensed, nor the only Arkie (at least by birth; I'm a "naturalized" 
Texan according to my wife) so here goes.

I've only been a licensed ham since 2004.  I can't say for certain when 
I first became interested in it but it was just one of those things that 
had lain in the back of my mind for a long time before I did anything 
about it.  I'm just old enough to remember when the radios around the 
house had to "warm up" before they started working well and transistor 
radios were a luxury brought home by servicemen or people who'd gone off 
to live in the big city.  Radio brought in news and programs from exotic 
places . . . like New Orleans, Chicago, or St. Louis.  I almost took an 
electronics class in high school but a scheduling conflict sent me 
another direction.  I've often wondered what might have happened if I 
had gotten to take that class.  A friend of mine who did went on to work 
for Southwestern Bell.

I quickly upgraded go General because I considered HF DX to be "where 
it's at", or where I wanted to be, as far as radio was concerned.  There 
were rumblings that the Element I might go away so I decided I wanted to 
be one of the Know-Code hams and passed that.  At least some day I can 
say, "Back in *my* day . . . ".  However, I've never really had time to 
keep up with it as I would have liked.  Then, being the type that 
doesn't like to be limited, I eventually upgraded to Amateur Extra so 
I'd have full access to the ham bands. 

One of the local hams had been encouraging me to try RTTY.  During a 
morning coffee gathering of local hams I mentioned this and someone 
offered me an ASR32 Telex machine he had left over from a business he 
owned.  I started playing around with it.  It works but has a problem 
with the 5th bit.  I've gotten 60wpm gears for it but, I'm told, need to 
figure out some wiring changes to do TTY with it.  (By the way, I have a 
fondness for old machines and really like to see them work rather than 
sitting on shelves.  I also do photography as a hobby and try not to 
"collect" cameras unless I'm certain I can actually use them in some 
way.  I've "talked" to people on computers and didn't find that 
satisfying which is one reason I got into ham radio and one reason I'd 
prefer to stay away from them as far as radio is concerned.)

An M19 turned up on eBay so I decided to jump on that.  It's at least in 
working condition now.  The character counter and TD need work but the 
printer works.  Another local ham loaned me a Dovetron TU but I haven't 
been able to copy the W1AW bulletins yet; I can't figure out why.  The 
M19 came with an interesting homebrew TU built by the fellow who had the 
printer.  Unfortunately, he didn't label to connections.  I've been able 
to find the loop supply but I'll have to experiment with the rest at 
some point.  It seems to work (tube type) but is a little flaky.  The 
whole set had not been used in around 40 years.

Another local ham gave me a TT-100/FG Kleinschmidt machine.  
Unfortunately, it's a fairly sad case (at least at first glance).  It 
will need a lot of work.  If anyone has manuals and information that 
would help me disassemble it, clean, and restore it I would appreciate 
it.  I also got an AN/UGC-74B machine.  It seems to work but I need a 
ribbon cartridge for it.   Yeah, when I step off into something I tend 
to go "whole hog". 

I'm looking forward to doing RTTY the "right" way sometime soon.  I also 
would like talk to anyone who has equipment they'd like to dispose of 
(for sale or otherwise).  My motto is "Have Pickup; Will Travel."  I 
guess that some flavor of M28 would be nice.  I'm enjoying this list 
very much.

73
Kevin
KE5CQJ