[Qcwa] WWII RTTY

[qcwa@mailman.qth.net]

Hello All:

My father was on Biak island (Dutch East Indies), 142 AACS, late in the war.  
Dad was a "trick chief" a shift supervisor of the TTY operators.  He was 
administrative and didn't know much about the gear and I never worked RTTY, 
so I'd like to pose a couple of questions to the group.

(A photograph of the TTY/CRYP room is at the following URL:
http://home.att.net/~ka2e/dad/pic54.jpg)

a.  Can anyone identify the TTY gear at the right?
b.  What type/power of transmitters/receivers would have been used?
c.  How were the TTY machines interfaced to the transmitter/receiver?
d.  What frequencies were used?
e.  Generally, how did the TTY machines operate? I'm told they punched a lot 
of traffic on paper tape and sent it later.  Communication was also done 
directly at the keyboard - how did they switch between transmit and receive?

Many thanks for your help.  I feel it important to preserve as much WWII 
history as possible because I can't forget that the comfortable lifestyle 
that my generation enjoys was purchased by the sacrifice of the WWII 
generation.

Best 73 de KA2E.

--
Mike
http://ka2e.home.att.net