(Ham Radio) How to run RTTY on C64 / VIC 20 ?

[ZerodB]

Greetings CBM crew,

I was wondering if anyone here has experience with ham radio and has
used a VIC 20 or C64 to send and receive RTTY over the air ?

As I understand, cartridges and software were once available, and
currently I have been able to find an RX/decode only cart by
"Microlog", but I want to TX as I have my amateur license.

I'm very much into the old radios, It only makes sense for me to try
and bring in the older computers into the mix........

So, anyone know where to get RTTY goodies for the VIC and/or C64 so i
can make some RTTY contacts ?

Thanks for any info,
Jayson

[J.B. Wood]

Hello, from N4GGO. While I've been a ham and a big C-64 user over the
years I never interfaced the computer and radio. Some of by ham buddies
used things like PakRATT (sp?) and such. You might want to try posting
this on an appropriate ham usenet newsgroup (e.g. rec.radio.amateur.*),
yahoo groups or www.eham.net. Sincerely, and 73s,

--
John Wood (Code 5520) e-mail: wo...@itd.nrl.navy.mil

Naval Research Laboratory
4555 Overlook Avenue, SW
Washington, DC 20375-5337

[Leif Bloomquist]

"ZerodB" <n...@no.com> wrote in message
news:7ps2a6tj38kuj2frv...@4ax.com...

> I was wondering if anyone here has experience with ham radio and has
> used a VIC 20 or C64 to send and receive RTTY over the air ?
>
> As I understand, cartridges and software were once available, and
> currently I have been able to find an RX/decode only cart by
> "Microlog", but I want to TX as I have my amateur license.

Which Microlog do you have? I have the Microlog AIR-1 for my VIC-20 and
it's very cool. I've never actually done any ham radio myself, but saw
this at a flea market and snapped it up. My understanding is that it does
TX as well (converts typed text to RTTY/Morse, and has KEY IN), but
certainly needs external equipment.

I have tried experimenting with receiving RTTY, but the VIC itself puts out
so much RF interference it swamps any signal I've ever found ;-) If I
inject a fake/prerecorded RTTY audio signal (I have a couple in mp3 format),
it works very well.

To get them - eBay, Lemon64, comp.sys.cbm, flea markets, the usual.

Regards,
Leif

[RobertB]

On Sep 27, 9:49 pm, ZerodB <n...@no.com> wrote:

> I was wondering if anyone here has experience with ham radio and has
> used a VIC 20 or C64 to send and receive RTTY over the air ?

Check out the relevant discussions at

http://sleepingelephant.com/ipw-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?t=1373&highlight=hamtext

http://sleepingelephant.com/ipw-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?t=4231&start=15

http://sleepingelephant.com/ipw-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?t=4454&highlight=hamtext

> So, anyone know where to get RTTY goodies for the VIC and/or C64 so i
> can make some RTTY contacts  ?

Kantronics is still in business, though I doubt they
have VIC-20/C64 materials still. I will ask our FCUG
ham radio expert and see if any hardware is still
around.

Truly,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group
http://videocam.net.au/fcug

[ZerodB]

Gentlemen,

Thank you all graciously for your replies.

I will look into recommendations, maybe make another request on usenet
in the amateur radio groups, and do some general digging.

Robert: thanks for putting out feelers in Fresno. Let me know if you
find anything out.

I don't own any Microlog interfaces BTW, i had just read on the net
that they had an RX interface.

I've been reading about older Kantronics interfaces such as "The
Interface", and of course the ubiquitous "Hamtext" (unless you are
looking for one at a hamfest, then not so ubiqtuitous).

Not sure this project will pan out, but as a ham and a vintage
computing enthusiast, it seems only logical to marry the two ;)

Thanks again for your time guys,
Jayson

[da...@missing.com]

Sorry I am so late to the game here.

AEA made several TNC products that worked well with the 64, the PK232 is the
one I used way back when. They also had their own cart you could get from
them. Check the ham auction sites.

[ZerodB]

Many many months later....

I am revisiting this project after moving to a non-HOA location
(woohoo QRP). So I found this post, and wanted to say thanks for this
final post and any others I hadn't yet acknowledged :)

I have an AEA morse machine 3 that i love, I will dig and find a tnc
for use with one of my cbm machines. I love the idea of running a
RTTY contest with all older gear.

Kind Regards,
-0



On Mon, 10 Jan 2011 02:10:55 GMT, da...@missing.com wrote:

>.

[rber...@iglou.com]

If you still need any help, our Ham Radio expert is still around to help you out.

Truly,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group
http://videocam.net.au/fcug

July 27-28 Commodore Vegas Expo v9 -
http://www.portcommodore.com/commvex