[CW] OT - Typewriter Ribbons

[D.J.J. Ring, Jr.]

Typewriter ribbons:

Ernie Jorgenson,
AC7XV.<http://members.ebay.com.sg/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewUserPage&userid=ac7xv>

I found him.

Hint to those who have typewriters.

Either last year or the year before, I thought about buying some ribbons for
my two typewriters.

I have a nice Olympia Deluxe SM4 portable typewriter in brown hammertone -
made in 1955 - all the parts that needed to be metal were metal (plastic key
tops were the only plastic parts) - all the adjustments where chromed
steel.  The Olympia Deluxe SM5 is even better, but I don't have one.

Here is the Olympia SM5 - the major difference is the tab set and clear keys
alongside the space bar:
http://sevenels.net/typewriters/large/OlympiaSM4.jpg

I have for copying Morse code, a Royal Empress manual full size (office
type) - all CAPS with a slash zero and simple top hooked 1 (no bottom line).
http://machinesoflovinggrace.com/large/RoyalEmpress.jpg

It's a huge typewriter as one web site says:  bigger than an IBM Selectric,
and weighs almost as much, but it's a manual! I like that it kind of looks
like the Jetsons' car. Royal sold a similar-looking electric model called
the Electress. It could be that the Empress was offered as a manual
alternative.

I just love the way the Olympia works - in one ship's radio room (R/R) I was
in Heaven.  I had an Underwood MILL (beautiful MILLs these Underwoods) and a
Olympia full-size SG (the SG type was the big office type, and the SM were
the portables) with a THREE FOOT long carriage and platen with tiny 17
character per inch *Italic *typebars.

Shipping companies (and this one was NO exception) required the Radio
Officer (R/O) in addition to his duties in copying traffic lists,
meteorological bulletins, notices to mariners, copying twice daily weather
reports, obtaining a "TIME TICK" - which over in South East Asia could be
quite a task - except for JJY on its interesting non-standard 8,000 kHz
frequency (no QRM on that frequency), or the wonderful joyous discovery when
nearing Hong Kong and hearing the daily chant on 500 kHz sent in fairly fast
but well keyed manual hand key Morse:

CQ CQ CQ DE VPS VPS VPS = HONG KONG TIME TICKS dot dot dot dot DASH DE VPS +

The dash indicated noon time Hong Kong which was 0500 GMT (UTC).  I was
overjoyed - but the Second Mate who was on the 12 to 4 watch wasn't too
pleased because he wasn't used to them "damned dits and dahs".  I liked it
because WWVH Honolulu was out of range, and JJY Tokyo was difficult to pick
up as were the time station in Australia VNG which didn't have 10 or 15 MHz
so it didn't propagate into the South China sea.

Anyway, in addition to all of this and passing traffic for the Master, Chief
Engineer, and personal messages and telephone calls, we had to do paper
work.  Payroll, and the worst of all was when we returned to the USA - we
had to type up this HUGE document called "Foreign  Shipping Articles" - it
must have been four feet long and about 20 inches wide. Whatever the width a
long carriage would fit it, but normal 10 character per inch typewriter
would cause "special considerations".  Try as we might no office supply
store had a correct typewriter to do the government forms.

Each master or individual in charge of a vessel when shipping articles are
required shall prepare an original and two copies of the articles. The
original and one copy must be signed by the master or individual in charge
and by each merchant mariner; but the second copy must not be signed by any
of them.


type The instructions - right on the form said things like "spelled out in
full the relationship to the seaman".  This was the problem - you couldn't
fit anything in full in the darned little space.

But with this 17 charater per inch typewriter with the really long carriage,
EVERYTHING would fit.  I could put down the full spelling of the next of
kin, of the nationality of any aliens with work permits (a certain number of
the crew could be foreign born, non-citizens) but the officers (including
me) had to be USA citizens - either naturalized or natural native born.

But copying CW on it as I did one time for a very complicated message of
1200 words (engineering parts and steward supplies and food) was frustrating
- really small writing!

73

DR
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