I've been going through the RTTY material in some old issues of CQ magazine. Thought some of you might be interested in the history.
At first most of the operation was in the Eastern U.S. on 2 meters using AFSK (and I guess it was 2 meter AM, not FM in those days, as they talk about SCR-522 and other surplus gear) These guys were serious! they talk about 16 element beams and 400 watt transmitters. I wonder if you get some tropo scatter at 2M. At the time repeaters, at least unattended repeaters, were not authorized. The operators in NYC kept begging the FCC to let them set up a repeater in a tall building, because in the canyons of Manhattan they couldn't even work across town on 2M. There was some make-and-break operation on HF, since FSK was not yet authorized for hams (not until Feb 1953) but it was considered practically useless compared with FSK. FSK at the time was 850 Hz shift, largely to accomodate drifty radio equipment. It was much later that the FCC agreed to allow any shift under 900 Hz, and 170 became the new standard. I haven't learned how 170 was decided upon. 85 Hz was standard for frequency division multiplex carrier systems, and in some MARS operations the military insisted that you use either 850 or 85. But the hams settled on 170. Perhaps equipment was still too drifty for 85 to be commonly used. The operators back in the 50s-60s were mostly running fairly high power, 400 watts or more, on HF FSK. Need a Digital mode QSO? Connect to Telnet://cluster.dynalias.org Other areas of interest: The MixW Reflector : http://groups.yahoo.com/group/themixwgroup/ DigiPol: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Digipol (band plan policy discussion) Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/digitalradio/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/digitalradio/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
