I was net control today for the 40m 850 shift net using my new toy. Zach W8ZJT was also using his UGC-136BX. This may have been the very first UGC-136 QSO that didn't involve a submarine...
Here are some miscellaneous notes on actual operation
My ribbon got stuck a few times - probably just the 35 year old ribbon sticking together and being too hard for the mechanism to pull around. Twisting the manual ribbon advance knob got it going again. Since it was my first time using this machine I had my nearby 28ASR printing as a backup.
Be sure the XMIT_ACT lamp is lit when you are trying to transmit from the keyboard. Mine got thrown out of
XMIT_ACT
when I switched my radio from transmit to receive - I have a lot of long cables running together so a glitch was getting in somewhere. After I keyed my transmitter I had to enter TX_MSG, ENTER again, sometimes several times to get the mode to stick. If the XMIT_ACT lamp is not lit, you can be merrily typing away locally but only transmitting a steady mark.
Again, because it was my first on-the-air experience, I had a backup receiver on a nearby speaker so I would notice if I was stuck in steady mark through a glitch or human error.
Composing a reply while receiving will take some getting used to. It isn't like having a FIFO buffer you can type ahead into. You compose a message, exit C/E, and then when you are ready to transmit and hit TX_MSG
you have to remember the number of the message you just composed.
If you want to insert a stored message when you are typing from the keyboard, you
0. turn the radio to transmit
1. start keyboard mode with TX_MSG, ENTER, type some and then
2. exit keyboard mode with CTRL-ENTER
3. start the stored message with TX_MSG, number, ENTER
4. when the message has been transmitted, the lamp will go out and then
5. restart keyboard transmit mode with TX_MSG, ENTER, type some and then
6.turn the radio back to receive
Zach says it gets easier as you gain experience. I'm still freezing while looking for FIGS/LTRS until I remember I don't have to do that. All-in-all it was a fun experience and great to actually put the new toy into use.
I need to check if you can enable Unshift-on-Space (UOS). If you take a hit while receiving you may get stuck in FIGS (and I need to experiment to see whether CR LF unshifts the printer).
That's a reminder for people to please send CR CR LF LTRS at the end of every line.
The manual says that NULL characters are non-printing, but on my 136 (and others) it prints a backslash. This could be a pain with stations that are sending NULLS as diddles (idle characters), but there was no issue today with a station that was sending FIGS as diddles.
When you turn off the UGC-136 power all messages are lost. So I created a paper tape with a bunch of common messages (each with VZCZC start and NNNN end) - RY TEST, CQ, NET INFO, etc. Before the net I ran that tape on my 28ASR and into the UGC-136 so I then had those messages stored for ready transmission. The UGC-136 manual alludes to a bulk storage option (floppy disk?) but so far we have no info on that.
Yeah, I know I could do all this easier using a computer, but it is quite satisfying to learn about and get a new old piece of machinery going....... Super thanks to John Hargett for stepping up to make this UGC-136BX group project happen.
Have Fun and keep those cards and letters coming in for the HINTS page