[GreenKeys] Excerpt from "The Story of a Storm"

[Ralph Irish]

In Metro Detroit, we had a 'weather wire' on 2 Meters.  The data signal came on a phone line
from Detroit Metro Airport, and was broadcast from Warren, Michigan, from the top of a 10 or 12
story building.  The system was devised by Keith Petersen, W8SDZ (SK) and Jim Prest, WA8SEL. 
They came to know each other from their years working at Detroit's Channel 2 TV station.

The signal came in as some form of data on a phone line and was converted to the proper tones
for narrow shift TTY, 2125 and 2295 Hz.

THE SPEED WAS 75 WPM.  This was not put into service until just after the FCC authorized TTY
speeds other than 60 WPM.  Either that or they somehow got permission from the FCC to use
75 WPM, since there was not an economical way to down convert speed at that time.  (May have
been before the introduction of the UART.)

I suspect that this same signal was made available to small airports, etc.  We had several in
this area, but I never investigated this.

I've forgotten the frequency, but it was what would have been a TRANSMIT frequency of a 2 Meter
repeater.  Since that 'pair' of frequencies had gone begging for a long time, there was no
hesitancy to use the Transmit freq.

The transmitter was turned on by an incoming signal.  I don't know or remember if there was some
kind of a 'call up' that alerted people and systems that weather news was coming or not.  I copied
it on many occasions, and don't remember any 'chopped' beginnings, so there was probably some kind
of 'leader' on the sending tapes that allowed remote equipment to turn on and get all of the
data sent for a particular weather news release.

Keith & Jim somehow installed an antenna on the outside, on the roof of the building and coverage
was quite good.  I think the transmitter was some kind of Motorola in a 'station console' similar
to equipment of the vacuum tube era found in police stations, DPW offices, Taxi companies, etc.

I have long since forgotten just when it was taken out of service and why.  But, as I said, it
gave decent coverage with a modest gain antenna and maybe 100 watts out of the transmitter.

If anyone is interested in more details I can contact Jim, WA8SEL, who is still in the metro area.

73,

Ralph - W8ROI

- - - - - - - -

On Aug 26, 2017, at 9:44 PM, David I. Emery wrote:

> On Sat, Aug 26, 2017 at 08:00:44PM -0500, Jim Haynes wrote:
>> I think but am not sure that the weather TTY service was originally 60 
>> wpm.  Then about 1960 the ADIS system went into service and speed went
>> to 100 wpm.
> 
> 	All the heavy metal real model 28 based weather TTY I ever saw
> at airport FSSes and WFOs was at 100 WPM in the 60s... as were a lot of
> the FAA TTY circuits for flight info (NOTAMS) and similar.
> 
> 	I vaguely remember a 60 WPM (might remotely possibly have been
> 75 WPM) "weather wire" circuit with public forecasts, warnings and
> weather reports  mostly in English text existed for distribution to the
> news media. (There is such a circuit now on C-Band NOAAPORT and the GEOS
> satellites but in upper/lower case ASCII and computer to computer IP
> format with no defined "speed").
> 
> 	Some of the HF RTTY weather broadcasts of that era were 60 WPM
> (and some 67 or 100).... but the US military (Navy in particular) ran
> 100 WPM HF weather circuits (in the clear).
> 
> 	I did run across 14/15/19 machines with the weather symbol set -
> so there must have been an era when a lot of those were used with
> weather traffic at 60 or 67 WPM as they really didn't work reliably any
> faster.
> 
> 
> -- 
>  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."
> 
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