Sometimes you see something that just…you HAVE to have it. Especially if it scratches an itch regarding the interest of the week: RTTY and Teletypes. Earlier this year, I came across the Dovetron MPC-1000R(ish) Mark II and thought it looked so bad ass that I had to have it. It would add a RTTY cross display to my setup as well as maybe add some features? Anyway it came packed well, so lets dig into this thing and see what a nightm..fun time we’ll have with it.
First impressions are that it looks VERY cool, and at least going by the knobs and controls, has a plethora of interesting features, including the ability to custom specify the mark and space frequencies (easy peasy on Fldigi, not so much on older hardware!) I also see controls for memory functions, and even different baud rates for both INPUT and OUTPUT! The cross display was a staple for RTTY users back in the day, to help align the radio to the RTTY signal, if you didn’t have a spare oscilloscope to dedicate to the job. Nowadays we simply find the signal in the FLdigi waterfall and clicky clicky we have RTTY.
That said, after reading some documentation, I quickly learned that just like Teletypes, no two Dovetrons seem to be alike. There are a variety of models actually, and various features that could be added on via boards and mods. The actual model number on the case doesn’t necessarily represent all the guts inside, so I had to open the lid and take a peek to see what it really did or didn’t have.
One thing became suddenly obvious in looking over the docs compared to what I see…the top board labeled “TSR Adapter” is actually just a placeholder board that could have been one of the (several) “TSR” boards, such as a TSR-200, TSR-500, TSR-600 and so on. The adapter board simply passes a few signals and otherwise “holds” the cables in place and nothing else. Its practically a bare board (the two sockets at the front/top of the pic aren’t even connected to anything). That said, earlier I mentioned it was a MPC-1000R(ish), as without the TSR board, its considered a “basic” MPC-1000 and not really an R. This can be found mentioned in the 37 page selection guide:
