[GreenKeys] What brought you here?

[William Wuttke]

I certainly have enjoyed all the great teletype stories. I’m just a newbie, but have been bit severely by the teletype bug.

I first became acquainted with Teletype circa 1977-78. While stationed in the Philippines with the USAF, I assembled a SWTPC 6800 computer with all of 16K of RAM along with a CT-64 video display terminal and cassette tape interface for storage. I wanted a hard copy device and the Model 43 fit the bill and had a keyboard to boot. The only problem was the oddball paper size. I ordered a box of paper, but it got shuffled off somewhere before it left the US. Apparently, it couldn’t get shipped to an APO address. So I used single sheet paper that didn’t feed very well. When I got back to the US, a friend gave me an after-market adjustable tractor feed that didn’t work very well, either. That’s when I got another printer.

In 1979-81, I worked at the Presidential Aeronautical Station at Andrews AFB (304X4 Ground Radio Maintenance) where there were a couple of M28 ASRs coupled with KW-7s and CV-786 and TE-204 modems. The FSK was sent to any of a number of stations worldwide where it was transmitted by Collins URG 10 KW transmitters to be received by Air Force One.

I retired from the Air Force in 1986 when I went to work for E-Systems (now part of Raytheon) to work on the Presidential Aeronautical Station upgrade program. I wrote test software for various components of the system and got acquainted with Baudot, writing a Baudot terminal program to troubleshoot a problem we were having with the automated messaging system.

Fast forward to 2015. Having retired from Raytheon and moved to California, I finally had time for my hobbies - ham radio and computers. I assembled a PiDP-8 mini-clone and decided it would be nice to have a real teletype for I/O. I bought a M33 KSR (with acoustic modem) from Paul Cembura that I brought back to life with not much trouble. Paul tried to talk me into a 5-level machine, but I wanted it to interface with the PiDP-8. He said that once teletypes are in your blood, sooner or later you will get a Baudot machine. Well, the KSR was fine except that I now wanted some tape storage. So, I bought a M33 ASR from Paul, which cleaned up nicely and got running again with a gear graciously supplied by Wayne. I wanted to get on the air with my teletype, so I concocted an Arduino interface to go between the 110 baud ASCII and 45 baud Baudot.

However, I’d been watching eB..y daily and lo and behold two M28 ASRs popped up (summer 2019). I grabbed one - only an hour drive away. I finally got my Baudot machine. It took me awhile to get it cleaned and lubricated, but it is now in my “shack” ready for the day when my CQs will finally get a response. Since then, I’ve started collecting TU’s:  HAL ST-5000, ST-8000, ST-8000A, CWR-6850, and a Tono Theta-777. Also got a TT-192A/UG reperf that came back to life without much effort.

I sure wish we could get a "Greenkeys net" going.

73,
Bill
KE3BK