Telex outing in Hungary

[levend]

Hello forum members!

Just a quick announcement that I will present two machines at an open field day with my HAM radio club in Zsámbék, near Budapest, Hungary, this weekend, 8th of October. Usually, we have these open days at our site every 2-3 months, but this time it will be special; I plan to bring my telex machines with me.
What to present: Siemens T1000S, Brno T100, the i-Telex interface
What to do:

• let visitors call each other from the machines and exchange messages

• let them print out some message onto the punched tape and take it as a souvenir

• let the visitors manually decrypt a punched tape message with the help of a printed ITA2 alphabet

I know that it's a pretty slim chance, but if you are interested in coming, let me know
I will post some pictures later.

[DF3OE]

Hello Balazs,,
very good idea!

Will you be accessible from outside? Do you have an internet stick or any other internet connection?

If you configurate your router as a bridge it is also easy to use a local WiFi network.

Have fun!

Henning

[levend]

Hello Henning!

Honestly originally, I did not think about being accessible from the outside, but now you placed a bug into my ear
I have a Mikrotik router with LTE access, but the telekom provider I have access to does not allow incoming connections. So either I set up a site-to-site VPN connection with routing to the i-telex module, or we reconfigure my i-telex subscription to work as keeping alive a permanent server connection to the TLN servers. Frankly, I don't think I will have time to tinker with the VPN solution. Do you see any other way?

[DF3OE]

Just switch to "permanent link" to telexgateway.de at your ethernet board.
Easy and reliable. We use same system with LTE router at HAMRADIO or other exhibitors.

[levend]

Just to be sure - is this what you mean?

Screenshot 2022-10-05 at 22.40.16.png

For some reason, I thought that this should be enabled on the server side too.

[FredSonnenrein]

Just to be sure - is this what you mean?

That's correct, you should not delete the other two server addresses.

For some reason, I thought that this should be enabled on the server side too.

That's also correct. And you have to select a PIN. It's not necessary to tell us that pin.
Do you want, that i activate the "permanent connection" now?

Best regards,

Fred

[levend]

Hi Fred,

Yes, please, activate it now. Should I just enter the pin and you will see it from the logs?
Thanks,
Balazs

[FredSonnenrein]

Hello Balazs,
it's activated now. The server stores the PIN of the first "Login" as a refecence.
Best regards,
Fred

[levend]

Thanks Fred!

I already left from home to work, i will try tomorrow morning.

[levend]

The event happened, and I must tell you, it was a great success. Around 150 visitors came, and most of them were very interested in trying out the machines. Unfortunately, there was no cell phone reception, so I could not bring the machines online, but the local exchange mode was sufficient. A couple of older people actually told their history around the machines they used in the army, border control, or in the post office. I really enjoyed the whole day. Some pictures:

IMG_3453.png

IMG_3455.png

IMG_3456.png

IMG_3463.png

IMG_3462.png

What went well:

• Letting the visitors chat with each other

• Giving out punchtape with the messages they wrote

• Seeing the machine read and transmit a prefabricated message from punch tape

Should consider/change next time:

• Bring somebody who could be my stand-in - I barely had time to drink between two visitor groups

• Decoding punch tape message by hand as a puzzle - no time or place to do it onsite, better to give it away as a souvenir - printed on a piece of paper with instructions and ITA2 alphabet

All in all, it was a great first event, and I definitely will do another one in the spring.