[GreenKeys] WBR70

[David I. Emery]

On Thu, Sep 30, 2010 at 01:03:42PM -0400, weather wrote:
> RE: WBR-70 etc.
> 
> Those were the days for me!

> At age 13 (and a bonifide weather nut) I found through an ARRL
> publication the possibility of receiving weather information via
> teletype.

	WOW - a dopplganger .... at age 14 as a prep school student in
Maine I discovered the same thing from a book on advanced amateur
meteorology... also as a weather nut at that age.

	It suggested contacting local hams too... but in my case I
simply dug up articles about RTTY from QST archives we had... In that
era I didn't actually know any RTTY hams although the guy who sold me my
first machine (also a model 14 strip printer) was a ham who ran a
business advertised in QST called Alltronics Howard.... I remember being
very impressed with his model 28s and R-390As...


>   That set me off... I got in touch with local hams and for a
> few dollars and a little time just a few months later I had my first
> radio, terminal unit and a model 14 tape printer.

	Cost me what seemed like more dollars (but a dollar went a long
way back then)... but I built my own TUs... and soon had the 14 cranking out
a hurricane advisory from WBR70.... no help from anyone really except
the authors of those QST RTTY articles...

>   Later on came a model 12 (what a monster) and then the coveted model 15.

	I quite quickly found a Model 15 from local military R&D surplus
at a place called ELI Heffron's in Cambridge Mass... never had a model
12...  for me the coveted machine was always a 28 (because it did 100
WPM).

>  I coppied WBR-70 out of Miami (CARMET = Carribbean Meteorological
> Teletype) 24/7.  I was befriended by a tech at a local TV station who
> kept me supplied with all the white fan-fold teletype paper and ribbons
> I could use. (remember the real inky purple ones supplied for AP/UPI?) 

	I never got supplies free - and was limited by my paper and
ribbon bill... but at one time I had printers running on various HF
military weather and WBR70 circuits pretty continuously.   We (at our
prep school) did forecasts for a local radio station... and of course
became about as addicted to real time news from AP and UPI as weather
information.


> At one point, I had a second 15KSR and with another radio and TU I
> swapped back and forth between AP/UPI news. [Good grief...I really
> thought I was something then!]

	I eventually acquired a model 19 (we had on ham rtty on and off)
and then a brand new model 28 through a connection with the local RBOC
through my banker dad (he was friends with the president of the company
I am ashamed to admit and things like that are possible in that
situation)...


>    Still a year or so later after learning the difference between the
> sounds of RTTY and FAX on radio, I obtained several surplus 18" Alden
> weather fax machines when the FAA and Weather Bureau began upgrading. 

	I had learned about fax about the time I learned about RTTY and
over a couple of years eventually hacked together a working HF fax setup
using parts from a scrapped military fax machine (mostly cannibalized
when I got it)...

	Later on about the time I was starting in college  I bought a
used 18 inch tube type Alden machine directly from Alden (they were a
local company) - turns out it had been at MIT for a while... 

	

> The local military surplus supplied all the (wet) fax paper (ALFAX
> PAPER) I could use.

	I wish I had had HALF your luck and skill at finding cheap
supplies... my Alden reception was GREATLY limited by the cost of the
paper...

>   I eventually moved the fax machine off radio and
> onto AT&T Long Lines.  For $11.44 per month I had 24/7 weather fax
> service. [I guess I was lucky to have so many military and commercial
> users already on-line (and I was close to several exisiting users) that
> the cost was so low.  Heck that was cheaper than a tradional private
> telephone line!

	I looked into this and got quoted hundreds of bux... seemed
completely out of reach...  shoulda tried harder, might have found the
same deal you did...

>  Thoses REALLY were the days for me.  How I miss them. 

	Likewise... of course I moved on to all sorts of other stuff
(and still play around a  little bit with satellite and other exotic
gear)...

	Became a software/hardware architect type in the end instead of
an atmospheric physicist... and worked on networking, LAN architecture,
UNIX OS internals and designing CPUs and unix boxes and various other
things... ironically, however, at one point in my career I supplied some
minor technical advice  on OS communications issues  to the custom
engineering folks at the computer company I worked at for use in the
first computerized weather workstation deployment for the NWS...

>  miss the large fax weather maps, they too no longer exist.
	
	You do know about NOAAPORT and EMWIN I am sure...  most of the
same info is available in an enormous flood off FTA satellite and can be
displayed and manipulated with open source Linux based tools developed
for university use but free for personal use.

	Of course the weather maps went to Difax for a while before
being  shut down... lots of years of that mode in the 70s and beyond...
same voice grade circuits but took a modem and some hardware to feed the
fax machine... seems to me in fact in the early days of the net I could
download images from the system that generated the Difax maps and print
them on a laser printer...


>  In fact, Alden Electronics went out of business years ago.

	I worked right down the road from their plant for quite a few
years from the 70s to the 90s ... our security guard at one start up I
worked at worked for them too and I used to ask him about their stuff...
in that era they had a dish farm besides their "silo" building that
would make mine turn green with envy - even now...

>   I sure wish I had one of those old fax machines now.  There are still
> a limited number of weather map fax signals available via Coast Guard
> frequencies.  Anyone have an Alden 18 recorder sitting in a closet? 

	Mine was so big I eventually had to sell it in the early 70s...
too big and heavy to deal with...

	I've seen them at fleas and occasionally on Ebay recently (and
for not very much)... I've assumed the paper isn't available any more...
(it was always the barrier for me anyway as I couldn't afford reams of
it)... (more properly I should say I have seen the 12 inch APT oriented
variety, not seen any of the big 18 inch monsters lately)...

	But since they shut down the GEOS WEFAX, I would think there wasn't
much to copy, and if you want satellite images surely capturing those on
a PC has ALWAYS been the way to go...

-- 
  Dave Emery N1PRE/AE, die at dieconsulting.com  DIE Consulting, Weston, Mass 02493
"An empty zombie mind with a forlorn barely readable weatherbeaten
'For Rent' sign still vainly flapping outside on the weed encrusted pole - in 
celebration of what could have been, but wasn't and is not to be now either."