Hello Doug here.

I am a ham too. KO4IFE

@d00g

Welcome aboard!  There are quite a few hams on board the forum.

de N4TTY 73.

@codecage thanks for the welcome message. I was a airborne radioman in the Navy too. Retired advertising photographer now. Love being retired. Every day is Saturday. 73 to you too.

@d00g

Was in the AF myself, but once had the 'pleasure' of boarding a Navy C-130 to work on a piece of teletype gear, but that's a story for another time.  Maybe you can infer where my call sign came from by what I had to work on, on that listening bird.  And this was in 1969.  😎  

I was on P-3c and d's We had teletype for secret communications. It hardly ever worked. Had to keep hitting the space bar contantly to keep it "synced up" LOL Luckly we hardly ever had a reason for secret messages. I was in VXN-8 aka" Oceanographic Development Squadron 8" Really just collected data for anti-sub warfare. 1971-1975. After the cold war was over they disbanded the squadron. So much for Oceanographic study. Ha.

@d00g

Probably the same thing as the C-130 was doing.  We had a pretty good sized teletype maintenance group, but there was one comm center where you had to have a clearance above 'Top Secret' to get in.  There were only two of us in our group with that clearance, and the other guy was an E5 while I was still an E4, so guess who got the duty of going to the flight line and giving the Navy a hand?  It was on Kadena AB, Okinawa.  The main object of that one comm center was to support the mission of the SR-71 Blackbird that was stationed there at Kadena.  That actual SR-71 is now in the USAF Museum near Wright-Patterson AFB in Ohio.

Did you have a KL-7 on board for encryption/decryption purposes or were you using the purely electronic crypto equipment?

@codecage just crypto

@d00g

The KL-7 was 'crypto' gear as well.  But since it had mechanical components as well as a few vacuum tubes it came under the care of the teletype maintenance guys not the purely electronic realm of the 'crypto' guys.

The KL-7 was like an Enigma machine on steroids. 

@d00g

Hi I just joined a couple days ago, I am also a ham in SW VA about 20 miles from It's Bristol Baby track. you talked about the P-3's I worked on the classified comm gear on those at the VQ-3 squadron on Guam but worked out of the communications station on the northern Part of the Island. Tore down my share of teletypes and worked on the crypto gear they were attached to and I know exactly why you had to keep it "synced up". Anyway my call sign is WBØYTV I am originally from NE but moved a bit further south to get away from the snow.

Yeah those teletypes were a bear. We hardly ever tried to use them. Didn't have much need for secure comm. Good to hear from a fellow ham and NavAir vet.

73

Doug

KO4IFE

@d00g & @martypeck

I never found a teletype that was a 'bear,' but I spent 33 weeks in a technical school learning about what made them work.  And I became an expert at it if you ask some of my coworkers.  But that was back in 1966 until 1970.  A lot has changed since then and some folks have never even see a teletype machine.

That's why I and a large group of teletype enthusiasts around the world still work on these mechanical wonders.  To keep them running for future generations.  I have a dozen or so sitting around my QTH and help others keep them clattering away and providing the smell of warm oil in the air.

I guess you might be able to discern from my call my interest in teletypewriters!

N4TTY 

@codecage

As a conscript in the army I used teletype machines with punched paper tape in the Signals Corp. The noise probably added to my tinnitus!  Back then (Vietnam war) they still taught Morse Code which I had to translate and type as it came in. As for the smell of oil I remember going to the second hand electronics surplus shop for electronic goodies to play with and loved the old electro mechanical machines that were used by the Post Office. I used to purchase the Post Office relays to make logic circuits. They would chatter away as they did their "thinking". They were very heavy on the electric power requirements compared with the solid state components we use today 🙂

@robotbuilder

Before I went in the service, right out of high school, which was less than a week after graduation, I went to work at Lockheed, drilling holes and shooting rivets doing my part to assemble C141s.  All without ear protection.  I attribute that more for my tinnitus than the teletype noise.  Rivet guns in an enclosed space are WAY louder.

🤣 😎