CQ Interviews: RTTY Contester Julio Tarraço, PY2XV
RTTY is the transmission, via radio, of TTY, or teletype. This mode of transmission can be considered as one of the oldest applications of binary technology in telecommunications, right after Morse Code. It was invented in the 19th century, and was first used in radio by the U.S. Army in the 1920s, and commercially starting in 1932.
It consisted of printing machines that output audio signals, consisting of 5 bits of information that were transmitted by radio to other machines, which printed the received text. These signals allow text to be transmitted much faster than through Morse code, and were therefore preferred when large amounts of information needed to be sent in a short time.
Within amateur radio, the use of RTTY began shortly after the end of World War II, on VHF. In 1946, the first amateur radio RTTY contact took place on the 2-meter band. Throughout the history of our hobby, many other digital modes have been created, such as: FT4, FT8, PSK-31, JT65, Packet, APRS, SSTV, etc. The popularity of these modes has its highs and lows,
