In 1977, when I started my shortwave activities, one needed a bunch of equipment to work in the RTTY mode. At that time I had an old LO-100 Teletype printer and build a DJ6HP converter and an AFSK quartz module. I worked with a real teletype printer! Today all you need is your computer, a soundcard, a few cables and a piece of software. Here is a short description of the program I am using. It is called Blaster TeLetype (BTL 1.51) and written by Robert Glassey, G0VTQ. Athough it works under DOS and in a DOS box under Windows 95 it is one of the best programs for RTTY with a soundblaster card I have seen. In decoding RTTY signals out of the QRM it is even better than my PK232 which has a lot of analog filters inside. I sometimes wonder how it is able to print when I can hardly hear the signal. The next three pictures show the help screen of the program, the receive/print screen and the features page from the help page.
If you would like to download the zipped program (~65 kB), you can do it right here. You may also visit Bob's homepage by following this link and see if there is a newer version. So, let's give it a try and cu in RTTY on the bands!