Hey congratulations!

That really is tricky to do and I don't know how much tolerance for
tuning error you have.  I've tried something similar but could never
seem to get it to work.  That's really cool!

73

Don  W6SMB

On Mon, 11 Feb 2002 08:48:44 -0800, Nathan, Kevin wrote:

>Hi All,
>
>I just wanted to share something I did this weekend that I hope may
>encourage others to try something new.  Please remember during the following
>explanation that I am totally blind so am doing everything by speech and
>sound.  I have a Kam TNC which is a dual port TNC capable of operating a vhf
>and an hf radio.  This weekend there was an RTTY contest going on.  I had
>worked one RTTY contact before and thought I would try it again this
>weekend.  Here is how I did it.  First, I turn my IC-746 to lower sideband
>(I was on ten meters).  Next, I set one of the band pass tuning controls to
>cut off low tones and emphasize the higher tones by turning it all the way
>to the high side.  I then set my TNC to rtty 45 which is the typical speed
>used in amateur RTTY.  Here is the tricky part for a blind guy.  Normally,
>you would tune across the teletype signal and watch the bar graph on the
>TNC.  However, I can't do that.  So, I turned on the monitor of my 746 and
>transmitted a tone with the tnc.  This is the mark tone.  Next I would tune
>in a signal, match the low tone to my memory of my mark tone and low and
>behold, I would have words spoken by the terminal program I am using and
>could copy the conversation or cq of the station to which I was tuned.
>Using this method I worked France, Germany, Belgium, Spain, Canada and Costa
>Rica in a period of maybe 20 minutes.
>
>Will this turn me into a hard core teletype enthusiast?  Probably not.  But,
>when I see a good dx spot come across the packet cluster, and note it is on
>RTTY, I probably won't hesitate to give it a shot.  I guess my purpose here
>is to encourage all of us who may be reluctant to try new things to jump
>right in and give them a shot any way.
>
>Take care all and 73.
>Kevin, K7RX
>
>Kevin Nathan, Independent Living Coordinator
>Dept. of Services for the Blind
>3411 S. Alaska
>Seattle, Wa 98118
>Voice:  (206) 721-6450
>Cell:  (206) 604-4767
>Toll Free:  (800) 552-7103
>Fax:  (206) 721-6403
>Email:  [log in to unmask]