The National Traffic System (NTS) is celebrating 75 years of service this October. As NTS 2.0 emerges to modernize the radiogram system, ARRL takes a look back at the origin of NTS which began in 1949.
The start-up of NTS® in October of 1949 could not have come at a worse time: HF conditions from then through at least the fall of 1952 were “the pits”! Two years in a row, EAN Manager George Sleeper, W2CLL, who replaced W2BYF in December of ’49, wrote to W1NJM that he could not remember conditions ever being as bad in his entire ham career! Sunspot Cycle 18 was approaching its nadir and Cycle 19 — the strongest and best of all the sunspot cycles we older hams have had the privilege of enjoying — had not yet begun to ramp up.
Source: ARRL
