Hi I'm Andrew G0AMS Like most of you I enjoy all aspects of amateur radio but my shack is a little unusual. Can you spot the difference?
My main interest is RTTY. I work with modern electronics during the day, so my amateur station does things the old fashioned way!Teleprinters are electromechanical monsters that send and receive 5 bit binary pulses. They were extensively used on the old telex service. A terminal unit is used to convert the teleprinter signals to audio that can be sent and received by SSB transceivers. (I use a battered FT101B and a home brew terminal unit).
These photos show my Creed 7B teleprinter. These were once the commonest teleprinter in amateur shacks. They are one of the easiest to work on as they are simple with only a couple of thousand moving parts.
This is a Creed 7TR1 reperforator used to prepare messages on punched tape. It is usually connected to the 7B keyboard. The tapes can be read back by the 6S2 tape reader. Punched tape is an adequate storage medium for a few hundred bytes.
My 6S2 tape reader. It is used to play back CQ tapes and station descriptions. The 24V motor only has to pull a paper tape past the reader but looks big enough for a small lathe.
My RTTY set up is almost as easy to use as a computer station but you tend to get oily fingers! Headphone operation is necessary to preserve your ear drums.
The RA17L receiver that will become my main shack Rx when I can get round to building a transmitter. These receivers have an adjustable BFO which is a great help when receiving RTTY through narrow filters. I cannot use the CW filter on the FT101 as it cannot pass the correct tones for my terminal unit.
This shows my R209 receiver used for portable work. It was designed at the end of WWII and is completely sealed to survive jungle conditions. British summers are no problem!
A class D wavemeter under restoration for use next summer. These wavemeters have a poor reputation which I consider wholly undeserved. In many ways they are superior to the BC221. (Certainly for my purposes).
My workbench.
Andrew G0AMS
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All photographs are ©2004 by Andrew Sinclair G0AMS and used with permission