T68D from Ham Radio 2023

[M1ECY]

With a few spare hours after last weekend's excellent show, I thought that I should share some information on the T68D

I was lucky enough to be in the halls very early on Friday morning, and a seller in Hall A4 had a huge trailer full of "Useful" equipment - as he was unloading,I spotted this machine, and with my very limited German, managed to agree a very fair price.

Please see some pictures below

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The machine is very dirty, and will take a lot of cleaning - some of this has been completed - the lower housing and keyboard was dismantled for washing in the kitchen - Hot soapy water works quite well, and importantly does not damage the original markings

[M1ECY]

Some more images from the start of clean up work

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[M1ECY]

The receiver worked with very little trouble - connected to my Trend TDMG1 it was soon printing Quick Brown Fox.

But the sender would not print at all.

The transmitter contacts were very dirty, taking a lot of scrubbing with Isopropyl Alcohol, and paper tape, but still this did notresolve the problem.

I looked at the Schematic that Andreas has posted in another thread on this forum, and found that the "F" relay is important - this shorts out the dial once connected, and then opens the sender to be able to connect to the line - three attempts at cleaning the contacts on this relay were required - a little Deoxit on a toothpick, and then more punch tape to burnish the contacts.

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Sadly, this machine has seen AFU action, but strangely, no adjustment of motor speed,and importantly no modifications - perhaps a page printer was found before this machine had to suffer.

Lots more to do to make the machine better - hours of cleaning, but at least it works. I need to change the identifier away from the AFU callsign, so suggestions are welcome

[Franz]

Hi Sean,

many thanks for the photos, the T68D obviously belonged to OM DL1GBB, Winfried, first QTH probably Berlin, later QTH obviously Lindau (Bavaria).
According to the internet he apparently passed away in 2001, so unfortunately you can't contact him anymore and ask him about possible modifications.

73

[M1ECY]

Thanks for the information from the previous owner - I could not find anything from the callsign here in the UK

Sad to hear he is SK, I wonder what tha machines have been doing in the past 20 years

[DF3OE]

Sean, the USTTY T100 you got also had the same call sign printed on the remaining paper.

[M1ECY]

Yes, it did - I have now found a picture of the OM.

Looks like he was active in T13 Lindau in 2017

[Franz]

Yes, it did - I have now found a picture of the OM.

Looks like he was active in T13 Lindau in 2017

Yes, sorry for wrong info, in 2001 he was still active in Berlin :

https://www.dl0bn.de/archiv/2001/d1801.htm

[arvadateletypes]

The T68 is now repaired, and has a new Identifier

21279 FIBBER G

Perhaps a bit of clean and polish work tonight, then the machine can be put on extended test.

For now calls to 299709 route to this machine