[GreenKeys] Newbie to the group

[Lee Spenadel]

Hi everyone,

I'm new to the group and wanted to introduce myself.  My name is lee and I'm an avid telephone switching gear collector.  I assemble mostly mechanical switching systems from the Bell System/Western Electric and restore them to working order. I have a home built Step-by-Step switch (my Frankenswitch) which is comprised of 30 stations, three talk paths, six trunks, one coin trunk (to support my 20+ 3-slot payphones) and other assorted telephones.  I also have an ITEC electronic SxS switch, an old British mechanical PAX and everything is tied together through my open source Asterisk Tandem PBX. Unified dialing plan and it's all open to the PSTN.  I have three T1 channel banks connected to Asterisk which allows me to trunk everything together, as well as break out analog dial tone.

As you can see, I have a deep love for the telecom space as this is how I grew up. My generous friend Larry offered me a Model 28 ASR but I feel that it's too big for me to lug into my basement.  I have become enamored with Teletype after seeing his restored machines.  I am looking to start out with a functioning Model 28 RO or KSR that I would interface to Heavy Metal.  My preference is something DC based and not carrier at this point.  ASCII or Baudot is fine as it seems that Heavy Metal can handle either (please correct me if I'm mistaken).  At some point I'd love to try and pull an extension off of my Asterisk PBX and do a speech to text conversion and send it to the Model 28.

My question is this.  Does anyone have a working Model 28 RO or KSR that they are looking to sell?  I'm looking to get my hands dirty on a relatively small unit at first and see how the Teletype sickness progresses with me.

Many thanks
Lee