Rick, Was that regenerative repeater in the Chicago area?
I remember someone used to send text "pictures" on one night. I have one left that I sent to my father, it was a semi-truck and the title was "Keep On Trucking". But the paper is getting brittle and falling apart. Had a Teletype Model 15 and a TU I built from RTTY Journal, was before the "ST-600" or "Mainliner", all tubes. I lived in North Riverside, IL and had to get a eight elemet beam, aimed it west to get good quieting on the receiver. Jerry - K0HZI On 2/25/07, KV9U <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > This was something we did in the early 1980's prior to packet radio. > Even my homebrew TU worked well on VHF RTTY compared with its dismal > performance on HF. We had an active contingent of local hams who used > RTTY on meters. In fact, they even built and maintained a regenerative > RTTY repeater which made it possible for hams over a 50 or more mile > radius to use VHF RTTY. Some had autostart so it was possible to send > messages to print and hold on their system. > > Then packet came in like a roller coaster. In a matter of a few months, > the useage of the RTTY repeater went almost to zero. The RTTY owners > decided that they would run the repeater for "a long time." Two weeks > later they shut it off. Then it was quite a sea change as most active > hams had a packet station always on for e-mail. Today, all we have left > is the internet since almost all interconnecting links, BBS's, are gone. > Another sea change, although the complete opposite of the one in the > 1980's when for a short time VHF digital was one of the most active > modes for radio amateurs. > > I had hoped to get some interest going with VHF digital, but have pretty > much given up as there just are not any hams in my area willing to do > this. Out of 150 hams in our area, you would be hard pressed to find > more than two or three who really have much interest in digital other > than perhaps contesting with RTTY. > > With more hams likely moving toward HF, it may be possible to find some > locals trying that out, but in rural areas like I live, it is just not > that common. > > 73, > > Rick, KV9U
