[ ANARTS - Australian National Amateur Radio Teletype Society ] ANARTS News Bulletin 908 12TH MAY 1996 Australian National Amateur Radio Teleprinter Society, which includes all digital modes, with the weekly broadcast on the following frequencies: 3.545 MHz (Plus/minus 5) 0930 UTC COL VK2CTD 7.045 MHz -3 0030 UTC COL VK2CTD 14.070 MHz (amtor/fec) 0030 UTC 14.091 MHz 0030 UTC 146.675 MHz 0030/0930 UTC VK2JPA (PAT) 144.850 MHz (ax25 bbs) VK2JPA AT VK2WI 146.675 MHz (rtty mmbbs/repeater) VK2RTY INTERNET RADIO-INFO-DIST AT UCSD.EDU Enquiries to the society should be addressed to the Secretary A.N.A.R.T.S., PO Box 860, Crows Nest, N.S.W. 2065, accompanied by s.a.s.e., or to VK2JPA at VK2WI. A.N.A.R.T.S. News Bulletin 908 12TH MAY 1996 Cols column. de Col VK2CTD I took a Siemens 100 teleprinter to the Central Coast Field Day earlier on this year, I got quite a few comments from passers by as I wheeled it on my trolley to the ANARTS stand. Things such as, Where did that come from, Noahs Ark, or, Crikey, never thought I'd see one of those again. I told anyone interested that it was being displayed in our history section. Something jogged my memory today regarding the old mechanical teleprinters and it took me back to the days I spent in the London Central Telegraph Office, or rather the six month course I did before being let loose among all those telegrams. The passing out speeds were to put it mildly, very high, I expect the same or similar standards applied here too. The machines used in the Telegraph Office were made by Creed, from memory, don't quote me, they were Creed model 7B's. Instead of the normal page copy plus the five unit code reperforator that the Siemens has, the 7B had a narrow tape that came out of one side of the machine with the message printed on it. The back of the tape had a thin layer of glue. The receiving operator ran the tape over a water wheel and stuck it to the Telegram form cutting it where necessary with a device that he/she wore on the left index finger called a thimble cutter. At the end of the Telegraph course each student was required to send or transmit 80 (eighty) telegrams in one hour. Now I know that you may think 'ah yes but telegrams are not very long', but you are probably programmed to think in terms of domestic Telegrams. Such as 'arriving home 8pm, love Fred' etc, but commercial Telegrams could be quite long and with the Preamble, address, text and collation, (collation meant repeating all numerals and unusual words), and then signing each one to say you had transmitted it, believe me you had to move yourself to finish the pile of 80 telegrams before the examiner shouted 'time up'. The standard was a maximum of 7 corrected errors and zero uncorrected errors. But the student was not yet finished. The machine used for this test had the normal page copy and five unit code reperforator. The examiner took this tape and kept it with your name and date written on it till the next day when you were required to take the test a second time. After the test was finished the examiner first checked the page copy for any mistakes and then compared the two five unit code tapes. If there was an extra letter or figure shift, carriage return, in fact any extra non printing characters, these were counted as an uncorrected error. If one was detected, you failed. That of course was the transmit or typing test, each student had to have a receive test. The standard was to gum 43 telegrams in half an hour. That is you had to run the tape over the water wheel and stick the tape to the form 43 times in half an hour. Each telegram had a word count which had to tally correctly and the student had to carry out the collation, checking each numeral and unusual words. There were always 3 errors that you had to detect and fill in a small form requesting a repeat. It was amazing just how fast a speed you could attain after a few years in the job, up to 80 telegrams each half hour was no problem to some of the operators. Unfortunately Telegrams are no longer with us, the authorities in both the U.K. and Australia decided some years ago now that just about everyone has at least one phone in their house making Telegrams redundant. Most of the circuits were landlines rather than RTTY, but the technology was the same except that a telephone line was connected to the Teleprinters instead of a Radio. I wonder if some crafty inventor might one day come up with an idea that makes the Telephone redundant, I wonder. See you all next week, 73s for now de col vk2ctd. --------------------------------------------- VOLTA RTTY WW CONTEST 11-12 MAY 1996 CONTEST PERIOD: FROM 1200Z SATURDAY TO 12OOZ SUNDAY (24 HOURS, NO REST PERIODS REQUIRED). MULTIPLIERS: DXCC COUNTRY LIST PLUS EACH CALL AREA IN VK, VE, AND USA. DO NOT COUNT VK, VE, OR USA AS SEPARATE COUNTRY. (USA STATIONS WITH CALLSIGN FROM ONE DISTRICT BUT ARE NOW LIVING IN A DIFFERENT DISTRICT SHOULD GIVE PROPER IDENTIFICATION, SUCH AS: K6WZ/O.) THE SAME MULTIPLIER COUNTS AGAIN ON A NEW BAND. AN ADDITIONAL MULTIPLIER IS GIVEN FOR EACH INTERCONTINENTAL COUNTRY WPRKED ON AT LEAST FOUR BANDS. CONTACTS BETWEEN STATIONS WITHIN THE SAME COUNTRY WILL NOT BE VALID , SUCH AS : A W2 STATION CAN WORK W1, W3, W4, ETC. BUT NOT W2. CONTACTS MADE OUTSIDE ONES OWN CONTINENT ON 80 OR 10M ARE WORTH DOUBLE QSO POINTS. A CONTACT WITH A STATION THAT WOULD COUNT AS A MULTIPLIER WILL ONLY BE VALID IF THAT STATION APPEARS IN AT LEAST 4 OTHER LOGS, OR A CONTEST LOG IS RECEIVED FROM THAT STATION. FINAL SCORE EQUALS TOTAL QSO POINTS X TOTAL MULTS (BAND MULTS PLUS EACH INTERNATIONAL COUTRY WORKED ON 4 BANDS) X TOTAL NUMBER OF QSOS. USE EXCHANGE POINTS TABLE TO DETERMINE POINTS FOR EACH QSO. AWARDS: A SPECIAL TROPHY WILL BE AWARDED TO THE TOP STATIONS IN EACH CLASS. IN ADDITION, A CERTIFICATE WITH SPECIAL STICKER TO ALL ENTRANTS. LOGS: USE SEPARATE LOGSHEETS FOR EACH BAND. LOGS MUST SHOW: BAND, DATE AND TIME (UTC), CALLSIGN AND MESSAGE SENT AND RECEIVED., POINTS AND NEW MULTIPLIER PREFIX. SUMMARY SHEET MUST SHOW FULL SCORING, AND LIST OF MULTIPLIERS WORKED. LOGS MUST BE RECEIVED BY JULY 30, TO QUALIFY. SEND LOGS TO: FRANCESCO DI MICHELE, I2DMI P.O. BOX 55 22063 CANTU ITALY HAPPY CONTESTING --------------------------------------- WEEKLY SOLAR AND GEOPHYSICAL REPORT ( 03 MAY - 09 MAY) ISSUED ON 10 MAY 1996 SUMMARY Date 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10cm 68 69 70 74 74 76 76 A 8 10 9 6 6 8 ( 8 ESTIMATED) T 2 2 5 6 6 8 15 SOLAR ACTIVITY WAS VERY LOW 3RD AND 4TH MAY, AND LOW FOR THE REMAINDER OF THE WEEK. THE GEOMAGNETIC FIELD AT LEARMONTH W.A. WAS QUIET TO UNSETTLED FROM 3RD TO 7TH MAY, BECOMING QUIET 8TH AND 9TH. MAXIMUM USABLE FREQUENCIES AT SYDNEY WERE NEAR PREDICTED MONTHLY VALUES ON 3RD, AND 8TH TO 9TH MAY; MOSTLY ENHANCED 15 TO 30 PER CENT DURING THE REMAINDER OF THE PERIOD. FORECAST (10 MAY - 16 MAY) SOLAR: VERY LOW TO LOW. GEOMAGNETIC: MAINLY QUIET TO UNSETTLED, UNSETTLED TO ACTIVE CONDITIONS POSSIBLE 14 TO 15 MAY. FREQUENCIES: NEAR PREDICTED MONTHLY VALUES. COURTESY OF IPS RADIO AND SPACE SERVICES ----------------------------------------- ARLD022 DX NEWS THIS WEEK'S BULLETIN WAS MADE POSSIBLE WITH INFO PROVIDED BY CHRIS, G4BUE, TEDD, KB8NW, THE OPDX BULLETIN AND CONTEST CORRAL FROM QST. THANKS TO ALL. CENTRAL AFRICA, TL. ERIC, F5SEC, WILL BE ACTIVE AS TL8ED UNTIL THE END OF MAY. CHECK BETWEEN 1530 AND 1700Z ON 20 METER SSB. HE SOMETIMES OPERATES AS LATE AS 1930Z. QSL VIA F5SEC. CAYMAN ISLANDS, ZF. MIKE, W5ZPA, WILL SIGN ZF2PA MAY 19 TO 25. HE WILL BE ON CW, RTTY AND SSB. QSL VIA W5ZPA. KERMADEC ISLANDS, ZL8. ZL8RI SHOULD BE ON THE AIR FROM MAY 4 TO 14. CHRIS, ZL2DX, ONE OF THE OPERATORS, HAS SUGGESTED THE FOLLOWING FREQUENCIES. FOR CW TRY 5 OR 20 KHZ UP FROM THE BOTTOM OF THE BANDS. RTTY WILL BE ON 7040, 14080 AND 21080 KHZ. MONACO, 3A. IK1QBT, IK1HLG AND IK1CJO WILL SIGN 3A/HOME CALLS MAY 11, 12 AND 13 ON ALL BANDS WITH CW, RTTY AND SSB. QSL VIA HOME CALLS. TUNISIA, 3V. YT1AD WILL OPERATE FROM CLUB STATION 3V8BB MAY 23 TO 30. QSL VIA HOME CALL. CROATIA, 9A. PREFIX HUNTERS NOTE THAT 9A0CW WILL BE IN THE CQWW WPX CW CONTEST. QSL VIA 9A2AJ. WESTERN MALAYSIA, 9M2. BETWEEN 1200 AND 1700Z LISTEN FOR 9M2JJ ON 40 METER CW, WHILE 9M2IY AND 9M2/G4JVG FREQUENT 20 METER SSB. ALL ARE ON THE AIR ALMOST DAILY. EASTERN MALAYSIA, 9M8. CHANG, 9M8FC, OPERATES 20 AND 30 METER CW BETWEEN 1330 AND 1830Z. QSL VIA 1995 CBA. MINAMI TORISHIMA, JD1. JG8NQI/JD1 IS ON THE AIR FROM MARCUS ISLAND. TRY 30 METERS BETWEEN 1000Z AND 1330Z, OR 20 METER SSB OR CW AROUND 0745Z. QSL VIA JA8CJY. JD1YBJ WAS ON 21177 KHZ AROUND 0550Z OVER THE WEEKEND. MARION ISLAND, ZS8. CHRIS, ZS6RI, IS ENROUTE TO MARION ISLAND WHERE HE WILL BE UNTIL JUNE OR JULY 1997. HE PLANS TO BE ACTIVE ON CW, RTTY AND SSB AS ZS8IR. --------------------------------------- THE OHIO/PENN DX PACKETCLUSTER DX BULLETIN NO. 252 - EXCERPTS THANKS TO THE NORTHERN OHIO AMATEUR RADIO SOCIETY, NORTHERN OHIO DX ASSOCIATION, OHIO/PENN PACKETCLUSTER NETWORK, WA2FIJ, KQ4QM, WA4JQS, AA5AU, W5ZPA, DF4RD, DL7VOA, DL9GOA & DX NEWS LETTER, F6AJA, G4BUE & DX NEWS SHEET, I1JQJ, IK1DPA, JR0GFM, ZL2DX AND ZS1AFZ FOR THE FOLLOWING DX INFORMATION. 3V, TUNISIA HRANE, YT1AD, WILL BE ACTIVATING THE CLUB STATION 3V8BB FROM MAY 23-30TH. BAND ACTIVITY AND OPERATIONS ARE UNKNOWN AT THIS TIME. QSL TO HIS HOMECALL. 9A0, CROATIA (ATTENTION PREFIX HUNTERS!) THE DXNS REPORT 9A0CW WILL BE ACTIVE IN THE CQWW WPX CW CONTEST. THIS WILL BE THE FIRST TIME THAT THE 9A0 PREFIX IS TO BE USED). QSL VIA 9A2AJ. 9M2, WEST MALAYSIA PRESENTLY THERE ARE PLENTY OF 9M2 STATIONS ACTIVE DAILY BETWEEN 1200 AND 1700Z ON 20 AND 40 METERS. 9M2JJ CAN BE FOUND ON 40 METERS CW, WHILE 9M2IY AND 9M2/G4JVG CAN BE FOUND ON 20 METERS SSB SOMEWHERE ON THE BAND. 9M8, EAST MALAYSIA CHANG, 9M8FC, CAN BE FOUND OPERATING CW ON 20/30 METERS BETWEEN 1330 AND 1830Z. QSL VIA CBA (1995). FO, CLIPPERTON ISLAND DXPEDITION 1997 JAY, WA2FIJ, HAS REPORTED HE IS INTERESTED IN RETURNING TO CLIPPERTON (PROJECTED DATE IS AROUND MARCH OF 1997). IT HAS BEEN 5 YEARS SINCE THE ACTIVATION OF CLIPPERTON. JAY IS TRYING TO KEEP COSTS DOWN BY LOOKING FOR HAMS OR FRIENDS OF HAMS WITH BOATS CAPABLE OF MAKING THE TRIP. THE LAST TRIP WAS ON AN 88 FT. POWER VESSEL AND WAS COMFORTABLE, BUT EXPENSIVE. IF A FEW 45/55 FT. SAILBOATS COULD BE FOUND, A FLOTILLA COULD BE ESTABLISHED WHICH WOULD RESULT IN (1) CAPABILITY TO CARRY ENOUGH GEAR AND PERSONNEL AND (2) IMPROVED SAFETY. IF YOU KNOW OF ANY HAMS OR FRIENDS THAT MAY HAVE ACCESS TO A BOAT THAT CAN MAKE THE TRIP AND WOULD BE INTERESTED IN PARTICIPATING IN SUCH AN ADVENTURE, PLEASE DROP JAY A LINE VIA INTERNET: PCB4UIX.NETCOM.COM F6EXQ AND SOME OTHERS WILL BE ACTIVE AS F6KSA/P FROM CORDOUAN ISLAND (IOTA EU-159) LOCATED IN THE AQUITAINE REGION GROUP, FROM JUNE 28TH TO JULY 5TH. ------------------------------------ COMING EVENTS ------------- MAY 11TH-12TH VOLTA RTTY DX JUNE 8TH-9TH ANARTS WW DIGITAL CONTEST ------------------------------------------- society information The Society may be contacted at : PO Box 860, Crows Nest 2065 or the Secretary (Pat) VK2JPA at VK2WI. Email address for the Broadcast Officer is : patl(at)pitt.conmusic.su.oz.au or patl(at)extro.ucc.su.oz.au 73s de Pat VK2JPA Broadcast Officer