[CW] Morse Code bug in Sacramento Railroad Museum

[David Ring]

Of course, I asked the same question!  And I got an answer.

What the Stock Broker telegraphist told me is that when there was some
important item, he could IMMEDIATELY signal the receiving operator,
who would take the copy paper out of the typewriter, and insert a new
page and copy the "FLASH" message.

It was for that reason that Morse telegraphers were retained.  Looking
back, I should have asked for his name - he was fairly young - perhaps
early 50s or late 40s.  20 years ago, I would have loved to call him
on the telephone and ask about the "last days" of stock exchange
Morse.

This same reason was mentioned in the 1957 recording entitled "The
Saga of Telegraphy" by J. Ralph Graham -- the brokerage houses were
among the last to drop the manual telegraphy.  I've contacted a few
brokers who I know who are now retired and the last time they had a
wire with a sounder was the middle 1970s.  I suspect it all went at
the same time.  Incidentally, it was only about ten years ago that the
railroads and post office in Mexico dropped manual telegraphy, and
there was a woman in Lima who joined the Morse Telegraph Club as a
"currently employed" telegraphist in the past few years.  Perhaps all
gone now, or going very soon!

Westinghouse Broadcasting WBZ had a studio-transmitter landline that
they used for execute commands - shut off transmitter, lower power,
etc., switch to the Boston 10 kW transmitter - and this was still in
use in the early 1980s.

One day in 1988, I called up the Chief Engineer, Norm Graham of WBZ
just to bust his chops a little and I asked him (he was very good at
history) if he knew what the call sign of the "point to point Morse
code station of WBZ was in Hull" (the antenna poles still stand on the
site to this day) - and he said he didn't know.  I thought I had won
the contest...but then he said "Do you want to talk to one of the
operators?"  Sure, I said, put him on.  It was Art Goodnow, W1DM,
retired from Westinghouse engineering - who started in Hull, MA as a
radiotelegrapher.  We talked about point to point and his days at sea
as a radio officer.  What a small world.

Would you ever think I would have called the very day that W1DM went
to visit WBZ in Boston?

The other odd event about WBZ retirees was when I lived in Winchester,
NH, I used to drive to the Northfield, MA post office as it was much
nearer.  And some of the guys from Vernon, VT drove there also because
it was only 700 feet across an old bridge.  Who was standing in front
of the post office?  Hey?  Isn't that an SOWP Titanic pin on your
lapel?  It was, and he was W1ZW, former manager of WBZ in Boston.
Phil Baldwin was a great CW operator - and he retired in VT which was
nice for many people!

Have any of you met someone that was a CW operator and "just knew it"
- it is an eerie experience!

73

David N1EA

On 6/17/08, Ken Brown <ken.d.brown at hawaiiantel.net> wrote:
>
>  "The landline Morse use faded by the middle 1970s, from Western Union,
>  from the railroads, and from the brokerage houses.  I met a man who
>  was a telegrapher for the Boston Stock Exchange about 1972."
>
>  I find this very surprising. I would have thought that baudot teletype
> would have replaced most landline Morse by the 1950s or 60s, using the same
> wires.
>
>  N6KB