Hello, Bryan. I've been playing around with RTTY decoding for 2-3 years
-- use a Kenwood R-5000 and a Universal M7000. Not top of the line, but
good, solid equipment. And I'm afraid I'll have to take the pessimistic
view regarding whether you should pursue this part of radio monitoring.
Indeed, most of the major news services have gone to satellite. You can
still get some interesting Third World stations: Senegal and Morocco, 
for example, provide some good wire service copy. ANSA in Italy, also. 
And there are some "sidelines": monitoring diplomatic traffic -- almost
always encrypted, but you usually can id the station from msg headers. 
And there is a fair amount of maritime traffic, but that gets old after
awhile. You can do some good with some of the newer RTTY modes -- the 
French govt/military use various versions of ARQ quite a bit. And if 
you are interested in FAX press photos, the Argentine press service 
puts out a good signal for that. All of this said, however, the number 
of stations transmitting RTTY really does seem to decrease yearly, if 
not quarterly. The latest to go (soon, if they haven't already) is the 
Japanese news service, which used to xmit good news stories and photos.
If you do decide to pursue RTTY, be sure to get good (and alas, 
expensive) equipment that cover as many modes or transmissions types as
possible: the Universal M8000 is the latest in a long line of RTTY 
decoders. And the HOKA Code 3 (which looks good in advertisements, but 
I've yet to meet anyone who has actually used one), would be 
possibilities. Or try to round up a relatively late used model M7000. 
That would save you several hundred dollars. Am sorry to say that the 
cutting edge these days is satellite monitoring, and that's where to 
put your money if you want to get into the latest area of monitoring. 
Best of luck, whatever you decide. Bill
--- TriDog 6.0
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