[GreenKeys] Step into the wayback machine...

[Jeffrey D Angus]

Back around 1972 I was working at Signal One in Gardena.
The owner, Ed Jay, walks up to me and says, "Our sales
brochures state you can run RTTY with the CX/7-A radio.
Make it happen" And hands me a Teletype Model 15 and
one of the radios to take home.

Radio Teletype? What the hell is that?
Nice looking machine though.

Nobody said anything about a terminal unit or what all
else I might need.

Step one was finding out just what exactly I had, how it
worked and what was I supposed to do to make it all work.

Step two, ordered some 88 mH toroids as those seemed
to be the "Key item" to making a receiver.

Step three, get the Model 15 cleaned up and working in
the local loop printing what I'd type.

Step four, cobbled together a receiving filter/keyer and
was able to at least listen in to other's conversations.

Step five, build a second receiving unit and hook that to
a Drake 2B with outputs for a cross indicator scope. Got
that working and tuned correctly.

Step six, FSK? What's that? Shft? Oh, ok, I think I got it.
Route the keyboard through the FSK input to the Signal
One transceiver and watched the display on the Drake
until I got it set correctly (I think)

Step seven, connect the Signal One to the antenna and
call CQ. Wow, somebody came back. Fiddle around with
the various trimmers here and there until I get the TX
and RX frequencies zero beat to one another.

Step eight, smile to myself as I put my Vibroplex bug
back in it's case since I can type better than I can send
code. ;-)

Step nine report back to "Fearless Leader" (Ed Jay) and
show that everything is working.

Step ten, return all the equipment and receive a hearty
thank you and a pink slip. Sigh, well that didn't exactly
go like I planned.

Reset to zero.

Got a job at Prototype Electronics Engineering Inc. as
the "TTY technician" running a pair of Kleinschmidts
to test the TT-523A/GCC Low Level Signaling Adaptors.

Get hired at TRW Systems group. My first "real" job.
Buy a used Model 19 table set out of the company
news letter. And then buy a Gonset GC-105 2 meter
AM transmitter/receiver and a crystal for 145.85 MHz
and a homebrew TU off of my teacher at El Camino
College.

Ah, we're back on the air again. Sweet! When I'm not
in the roundtable with a couple of the other local Hams,
listen to API and UPI bulletins on SW with a surplus
BC-348Q receiver.

Now, another friend of mine that was a SERIOUS pack
rat says, "Oh, you're on RTTY?" And sells me a two bay
rack full of AN-FCC/3 transmitter and receiver pairs. If
I remember right, I only paid $50 for both, and I had a
hell of a time dragging them back to the house a few
bits at a time.

An interesting learning curve making those function
correctly on the ham bands. Had to homebrew a
pair of filter units for the 850 Hz shift in use at the
time. Then ANOTHER pair when they switched to 170
Hz Shift.

Around 1980 or so a co-worker hands me a HAL ST-
6000 "I have no use for this". I realize I have just died
and gone to heaven.

Around 1985 I bought, used, the 4 element 20 meter
beam that used to reside on the telephone pole next
to the freeway at Henry Radio's old location. I didn't
have a tower so the best I could do was prop it up on
milk crates on the roof. It was as if I had a leased line
into Ohio from Los Angeles on HF. ;-)

Fast forward 27 years, a few houses, and a couple
of marriages later I'm living in Texas. Along the way
I acquired a Lorenz lo15c. (Thank's Jason) I have NO
intention of dragging that thing up a flight of stairs
to put in the radio shack. But I've been having very
good luck with my Icom IC-761 with a Signalink USB
sound card and Ham Radio Deluxe.

Does anybody have a TX/RX pair of AN-FCC/3 units
hiding in the corners?

Jeff-1.0
wa6fwi