The Good Ol' Days

[Mike McCoy, N7VWD]

Hey folks,

 

I was surfing the internet this morning and found this link.  This is what got me interested in telecommunications after I enlisted into the military.  Believe it or not, I was a wiz at fixing these things.  Imagine a whole (radio) room filled with these things running all at the same time, plus having HF receivers unsquelched and volume turned up.  Fun times back then.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mP9LWUIWvpU

 

Happy New Year!

 

Mike

CN87th

n7...@fwarc.org

 

[TdM Labs]

Yeah that’s pretty violent. Ozone headache too?

 

73 Jeremy w7eme

[Paul Kiesel]

Hi Mike, I was a Mod 28 user during my years in the Air Force (1960s). I'd write reports and use the Mod 28 to create punched paper tapes for the comm center to send. If I remember correctly, the Mod 28 maximum entry speed was 120 WPM. Sometimes you could actually overwhelm the machine, but not often. It was an amazing electro-mechanical device. 73, Paul, K7CW --- On Sun, 12/28/08, TdM Labs <oax...@oregoncoast.com> wrote:

[Mark Van Winkle]

Mike, I was given a M14-KTR line type machine by a local ham about 1971. I was in 8^th grade. I dug into the ARRL hand book and found the instructions to build an interface/keyer. (I don’t remember the technical name for it). It worked well up to 30 words per minute connected to my radio shack DX150A receiver and a B&W 5100-B SB. That is until I thought a little WD40 on the contacts would provide better copy. Just for the record, DO NOT squirt oil into a teletype when it is running! I was able to get the fire out and the mess cleaned up before my Dad returned from one of his business trips or it would have been the end to my electronics fun and all my junk in the basement.

 

Yes for me those were some Good Ol’Days,

 

Mark

K7HPT

DN17

---

From: PNWVHFS@googlegroups.com [mailto:PNWVHFS@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Mike McCoy, N7VWD
Sent: Sunday, December 28, 2008 9:41 AM
To: fwarcm...@yahoogroups.com; PNWVHFS@googlegroups.com; 'Eddie Tussey'
Subject: [PNWVHFS] The Good Ol' Days

 

Hey folks,

[Kerry Webster]

What a trip!  I've got two of these in my garage "awaiting restoration."  You probably remember that the keys on the Model 28s had the nasty habit of dropping completely down into the keyboard innards.  I'm going to get around to fixing them One of These Days.

The sound brings back a lot of memories for me, too.  I used to work in newspapers, where we often had six or seven of the receive-only Teletypes running at once, and clanging out bells -- two for an "urgent,"  three for "bulletin," and four for "flash."  The last flash I ever heard, the day Nixon resigned, was a five-bell flash, which is like hearing a clock strike thirteen.

Kerry WB7AKE

[Stephen Kangas]

FIrst one I saw as a kid was at a FAA office at the nearerst small airport where I grew up in AK.  Second one at a ham shack.  First time I actually used one was as a computer programmer (GA SPC-16 Assembly Language) while as a hardware/software design engineer at my first post-graduation job, before we designed a CRT terminal replacement; it had a paper tape punch/reader on it, and I remember carrying around about a dozen rolls of punched tape in my briefcase in those days during my travels (at least they didn't spill out of order, like those punched cards).

 

Thanks for the video link; fun to see one in action again.

 

Stephen W9SK

---

From: PNW...@googlegroups.com [mailto:PNW...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Mike McCoy, N7VWD

Sent: Sunday, December 28, 2008 9:41 AM

To: fwarcm...@yahoogroups.com; PNW...@googlegroups.com; 'Eddie Tussey'

Subject: [PNWVHFS] The Good Ol' Days

[Greg Chartrand]

The last model 28 I saw in operation was in 1997 at FBI headquarters; it was handling inter-agency messages. Boy was I surprised!

Greg

---------------------------------------------------------
Greg Chartrand - W7MY
Richland, WA.
DN-06IF

W7MY Home Page:
http://webpages.charter.net/w7my/

[Jim Aguirre]

Kerry's post reminds me of a time in my Army service on Okinawa in 1963.  I was the senor news editor for the Voice of the United Nations Command megawatt radio station when, on November 22, 1963, the teletypes went even beyond the very unusual "five-bell flash" alert with a steady ringing of the bells.  I ripped off the copy and it said "President John F. Kennedy has been shot.  Details to follow."  That message is burned into my memory.  I still have the original piece of copy that came off the 28ASR.  What followed was a hectic and uncertain 48 hours as details trickled in.

Jim - W7DHC

-----Original Message-----
From: Kerry Webster
Sent: Dec 28, 2008 12:32 PM
To: n7...@comcast.net
Cc: fwarcm...@yahoogroups.com, PNW...@googlegroups.com, 'Eddie Tussey'
Subject: [PNWVHFS] Re: The Good Ol' Days

What a trip!  I've got two of these in my garage "awaiting restoration."  You probably remember that the keys on the Model 28s had the nasty habit of dropping completely down into the keyboard innards.  I'm going to get around to fixing them One of These Days.

The sound brings back a lot of memories for me, too.  I used to work in newspapers, where we often had six or seven of the receive-only Teletypes running at once, and clanging out bells -- two for an "urgent,"  three for "bulletin," and four for "flash."  The last flash I ever heard, the day Nixon resigned, was a five-bell flash, which is like hearing a clock strike thirteen.

Kerry WB7AKE

On Dec 28, 2008, at 9:41 AM, Mike McCoy, N7VWD wrote:

[Barry Bogart]

I used one of these in the late 60's, in graduate school before I worked in the Pentagon. We used it as a terminal to GE or CEIR timesharing systems to run simulations written in the original BASIC. Editing a punched tape program is no fun. Better than Fortran II with a card punch, though!

73, Barry
VE7VIE/WV2J


--- On Sun, 12/28/08, Mike McCoy, N7VWD <n7...@comcast.net> wrote:

> From: Mike McCoy, N7VWD <n7...@comcast.net>
> Subject: [PNWVHFS] The Good Ol' Days

[Kevin Imel]

The club station at U Idaho (W7UQ) had a Model 28 installed for awhile while WE7P was attending school.  I was calling CQ with it one morning just for grins not expecting anything when the Vatican station answered.

The only "real" flash I ever heard was from the wire service receive only teletype installed in a local radio station.  I was there visiting a friend who was a DJ and director of news when the Flash bell went off.  That was the day the Marine barracks in Beruit were bombed.

I learned Fortran, RPG and started COBOL using a card punch system.  I still remember being up half the night finishing punching my final exam project for RPG and tripping on the stairs on my way to the card reader to turn it in.  Several hundred cards went flying across the floor.  That was the day when I was VERY glad I had taken the advice of a friend and drawn the black line diagonally across the stack once I had them in order.  Only a few minutes to put things back in order instead of hours.

About half way through COBOL class the college got enough CRTs to abandon the card punches and let us go to CRTs.  There was much rejoicing!

[Jim and Karen]

I remember when I used to have to go outside and turn the pole holding
up our TV antenna to clear up all the snow. Now I have to go outside
with my 20 foot pole and knock the snow off my Direct-TV satellite dish
to get rid of the snow. Is this progress?

Jim
W6LLP

[Kevin Imel]

Good point Jim!

[Len Gwinn]

Get some PAM spray on stuff from the cooking section of the grocery store
and spray it on the dish. Snow slides right off.

73 Len WA6KLK

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jim and Karen" <jimw...@centurytel.net>
To: "PNWVHFS" <PNW...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, December 28, 2008 8:45 PM
Subject: [PNWVHFS] Re: The Good Ol' Days


>

[Kevin Imel]

That only works down to about 25 degrees or so.  Below that the Pam freezes and the snow still sticks.  Well, that has been my experience.

I find that a couple coats of good carnuba based car wax in early October work best.  Only the nastiest sticky snow sticks. 

Also, if the boom attaching the LNBs to the dish is flat tube the snow will build up on this and eventually block the dish enough to degrade the picture.  I put a piece of waxed aluminum flashing bent into a 90 degree angle on mine last winter and that REALLY helped.  Of course that has now gone missing so I have to make a new one...as I discovered hiking through waist deep snow to clean off the dish on Friday.

[Edward Cole]

Gee you ought to move to Alaska, then. The TV dish is actually
tipped toward the ground so snow does not collect. The satellite is
only about 15 deg. elevation angle which puts the dish pointing about
12 degrees down (26 deg offset).

My new 16-foot dish has its stowed position facing -20 deg. elevation
for the same reason. What snow collects on the upper back side gets
blown off regularly. The dish pointed at az=130 when stowed since
the prevailing wind is out of the NE so it is sittling edgewise to
the wind. I guy both sides of the dish when stowed, as well.

73 & HNY
Ed - KL7UW

[Mike Lewis]

In my case I have an aluminum roof, and the snow slides off regularly.  
 
I have 2 dishes on the side of the house 8 feet below the cover of a 1ft or so eave. The weight of the latest roof avalanches hit the LNB arm on one satellite dish tweaking the alignment, the second disk took a rougher hit and proved the partial rivets do their  job and shear off rather than ripping the unit off the wall.  My first instint was to stick in some long #8 bolts but looking at the good dish, having the same partial rivet (do not pass through the hole fully) I drilled out the old broken steel rivets and used aluminum rivets rather the 8-32 bolts.  Hopefully they will sacrifice themselves equally well in the future if needed.
 
The neighbors just left the extension ladders out on the house the last 2 weeks to clear the snow off their.  I had no problem with accumulation. 30mph falling compact snow does not accumulate, it destroys. :-).   Will see how the new bushes around the house roofline hold up to the 4 feet of compact snow that fell on them.  A new landscaping requirement I had not considered before.

Mike Lewis
K7MDL
Grid Locator CN87xt
Member of Pacific Northwest VHF Society #C96 (www.pnwvhfs.org)
Visit the K7MDL Amateur Radio Pages web site at http://mysite.verizon.net/michael_d_lewis/index.html
Elecraft K2 #2633
 

> Date: Sun, 28 Dec 2008 22:36:59 -0900
> To: PNW...@googlegroups.com
> From: kl...@acsalaska.net

> Subject: [PNWVHFS] Re: The Good Ol' Days
>
>