In article ,
(Stereophile22) wrote:

You're probably thinking about the NAVAREA warnings and other
maritime broadcasts; yes, they're still very much around - I copied
some from USCG Boston last night

I have a question? Do you actually need a radio that recieves SSB to
copy these signals with a RTTY decoder, or can the RTTY decoders
still copy them fine even if your shortwave radio can only recieve in
AM mode?

The decoders operate on the demodulated tones. For RTTY there are two
tones for 1 and 0. You need the radio to generate these tones by
operating in SSB mode (usually USB).

--
Telamon
Ventura, California

The decoders operate on the demodulated tones. For RTTY there are two
tones for 1 and 0. You need the radio to generate these tones by
operating in SSB mode (usually USB).

thanks. Now I know to get a working shortwave radio with SSB capability before
getting a RTTY decoder.

In article ,
Stereophile22 wrote:
The decoders operate on the demodulated tones. For RTTY there are two
tones for 1 and 0. You need the radio to generate these tones by
operating in SSB mode (usually USB).

thanks. Now I know to get a working shortwave radio with SSB capability before
getting a RTTY decoder.

Just be aware that, if you want to get serious, you will have to get
a fairly high performance receiver, (on the par with an Icom R-75 or
the like). The maritime TOR stuff is narrowband shift (170? Hz) and the
channels are closely spaced (1/2 kHz).

I use(d) an Kenwood R-1000, which is designed mostly for audio broadcast,
and found that the 2.1 kHz narrow bandwidth (SSB) filter was often a bit
too wide and that the tuning drifted just a bit too much (maybe 50 Hz) so
that you had to babysit it to get solid copy.

Mark Zenier Washington State resident