[GreenKeys] WBR70

Fri Oct 1 22:45:45 EDT 2010

It seems like I remember that WX speed was 75 WPM and I have seen some 15's running at that speed, but most at 60 or 66 as a Telex.  Never seen one at 100.   

Massachusetts Mutual Insurance in Springfield had a room full of model 15 Telexes, about 12 or more in the comm center.  What a racket and the floor seemed to vibrate.  Happily it wasnt my regular section, so only went there a few times.  I remember the answerback was MASSMUT SPFD which I always got a kick out of.  

The USAF had the first Kleinschmidt Comet 300 (?) WX machines that I ever worked on.  They ran at 300 WPM.  Fast rotating drum and 2 little moving hammers that hit at exactly the right time.  Always breaking down.  And then the GE Terminets.  Matchstick like fingers with letters on a fast rotating belt.  Another nightmare to work on.  

Enough TTY war stories for tonight.  LOL.

Wayne
KB1FDW

-----Original Message-----
From: David I. Emery <die at dieconsulting.com>
To: greenkeys at mailman.qth.net
Sent: Fri, Oct 1, 2010 10:13 pm
Subject: [GreenKeys] WBR70

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
aine I discovered the same thing from a book on advanced amateur
eteorology... also as a weather nut at that age.
    It suggested contacting local hams too... but in my case I
imply dug up articles about RTTY from QST archives we had... In that
ra I didn't actually know any RTTY hams although the guy who sold me my
irst machine (also a model 14 strip printer) was a ham who ran a
usiness advertised in QST called Alltronics Howard.... I remember being
ery 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
ay back then)... but I built my own TUs... and soon had the 14 cranking out
 hurricane advisory from WBR70.... no help from anyone really except
he 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
t a place called ELI Heffron's in Cambridge Mass... never had a model
2...  for me the coveted machine was always a 28 (because it did 100
PM).
>  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
ibbon bill... but at one time I had printers running on various HF
ilitary weather and WBR70 circuits pretty continuously.   We (at our
rep school) did forecasts for a local radio station... and of course
ecame about as addicted to real time news from AP and UPI as weather
nformation.

 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)
nd then a brand new model 28 through a connection with the local RBOC
hrough my banker dad (he was friends with the president of the company
 am ashamed to admit and things like that are possible in that
ituation)...

    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
ver a couple of years eventually hacked together a working HF fax setup
sing parts from a scrapped military fax machine (mostly cannibalized
hen I got it)...
    Later on about the time I was starting in college  I bought a
sed 18 inch tube type Alden machine directly from Alden (they were a
ocal 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
upplies... my Alden reception was GREATLY limited by the cost of the
aper...
>   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
ompletely out of reach...  shoulda tried harder, might have found the
ame 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
ear)...
    Became a software/hardware architect type in the end instead of
n atmospheric physicist... and worked on networking, LAN architecture,
NIX OS internals and designing CPUs and unix boxes and various other
hings... ironically, however, at one point in my career I supplied some
inor technical advice  on OS communications issues  to the custom
ngineering folks at the computer company I worked at for use in the
irst 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
ame info is available in an enormous flood off FTA satellite and can be
isplayed and manipulated with open source Linux based tools developed
or university use but free for personal use.
    Of course the weather maps went to Difax for a while before
eing  shut down... lots of years of that mode in the 70s and beyond...
ame voice grade circuits but took a modem and some hardware to feed the
ax machine... seems to me in fact in the early days of the net I could
ownload images from the system that generated the Difax maps and print
hem 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
ears from the 70s to the 90s ... our security guard at one start up I
orked at worked for them too and I used to ask him about their stuff...
n that era they had a dish farm besides their "silo" building that
ould 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...
oo big and heavy to deal with...
    I've seen them at fleas and occasionally on Ebay recently (and
or 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
t)... (more properly I should say I have seen the 12 inch APT oriented
ariety, not seen any of the big 18 inch monsters lately)...
    But since they shut down the GEOS WEFAX, I would think there wasn't
uch to copy, and if you want satellite images surely capturing those on
 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 
elebration of what could have been, but wasn't and is not to be now either."
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