My QRZ page says “I started using RTTY with a Creed 444 teleprinter in the early 80s“.
I thought it would be interesting to look back through my old paper logbooks and see if I could find my very first RTTY QSO.
I spent a happy hour browsing through the logbook and it brought back a lot of fond memories. My first QSO was when I was fifteen years old on the 12th October 1982 with Peter G8XBB/M on 2m SSB as he was driving near Biggleswade. Within a fortnight, I’d operated /M myself, while going on a family holiday to Blackpool. On the 28th November, I worked my first contest, making 47 QSOs on 2m SSB and then I did the December Fixed (now called the AFS) where I made just under 200 QSOs.
In February 1984 I borrowed a Creed 444 teleprinter from fellow Harlow Club member, Terry G8LXB. It was converted for amateur radio use and all I had to do was make a lead to go from the interface box to the radio. At the time, I was using an FDK Multi-700E that belonged to my brother.
Although this isn’t the actual Creed 444, it’s identical to the one I borrowed. Terry gave me plenty of rolls of paper and tape for the tape reader so I could save my own messages for future use.
And here’s an FDK Multi-700E, this isn’t the actual one, I pinched this picture from a YouTube video by M0FXB.
My first RTTY contact was on the 2nd February 1984 with Don, G6HOK. I first called CQ using FM on the 2m RTTY frequency of 145.300 MHz, Don replied and we spoke for a few minutes before switching over to RTTY. This involved unplugging the microphone, plugging the interface into the mic socket and speaker socket and firing it all up.
Here’s the extract from my log. In the comments section it says “RTTY!”
There were a lot more RTTY contacts after that and it looks like this initial loan was about two months because after that, there’s a few months with no RTTY QSOs. I remember borrowing it once more before I got my own setup abut a year later. I think I may have been forbidden by my parents from borrowing it again because the Creed was so loud that not only did our entire house shake, but I think the houses either side shook as well!
I have an entry in my log for the 8th May 1984 which says “RTTY using Acorn Atom” which was my own equipment. It was [obviously] an Acorn Atom computer with a home made terminal unit which was built into a box with a nice tuning indicator and switching so I could change from microphone to RTTY without having to faff about swapping connectors.
The RTTY software I used was written by G4BMK and was supplied on EPROM. Here it is inside the Acorn Atom on an EPROM expansion board. You’ll notice there’s one called G6NHU ASCII. At the time, a group of us were also experimenting with different data modes over the air and I wrote some software to send and receive ASCII so my log is strewn with comments about “testing ASCII, failed” or “ASCII test, all worked“. It must have been reliable in the end otherwise I wouldn’t have blown the software to an EPROM.
RTTY became a very common mode in my log books and even now, all these years later, it’s still probably my favourite data mode. I get a real rush from operating in busy RTTY contests, more than any other mode.
Do you remember when you first operated RTTY? Is it a mode you’ve still yet to try? There’s a comments section below, it would be interesting to get some feedback.
