CQ CLASSIC
s we continue our look back over classic articles from our first 75 years, one of the early subjects in which our editors took a special interest was the then relatively-new mode, better known then — and now — as RTTY. Back in pre-computer days, operating RTTY meant connecting your radios (separate transmitters and receivers in the early days) to a heavy, noisy, mechanical monster known as a . Most hams used military surplus teleprinters or retired printers from telegraph offices (anybody remember telegraph offices?), newspapers and radio stations, and referred to them by the Teletype Corporation’s model number, such as a “Model 12,” one of the more popular in the early days. On the transmit side, many hams used machines that punched letter codes into paper tape, which was then fed through a tape reader and a modulator into the transmitter. Among those reusable paper tapes was frequently one which listed a ham’s station equipment. Today, a macro used to store a station rundown used for any keyboard mode is still referred to as a “brag tape.”
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