[GreenKeys] Western Union History

[vibroplex at mindspring.com]

Hi Everyone,

I am an infrequent poster to this list since I'm still in the learning phase...

My main technical hobby is landline Morse (using American Morse) on wire circuits.  I am a member of the Morse Telegraph Club which is a group of retired Morse operators (Railroad, Telco, Western Union, Postal Telegraph, Newspaper, etc.) and hobbyists like myself.  We would be happy to receive any recollections of Western Union and I will recommend that they be posted on our MTC web site.  

Our group, the Morse Telegraph Club (www.morsetelegraphclub.org) has a network where we use Bell 103 modems to AFSK over the phone lines and converter circuits to turn the tones into power to operate our instruments.  In that way, we can "telegraph" over the phone lines (and do it a minimum of 3 times per week).  We've been doing this for about 20 years.  My hope has always been to connect up my Model 15 over this dial-up circuit (with another teletype on the other end) and use it in place of my hand key/bug and that's been my motivation to hang out on greenkeys....actual landline teletype.

If the former employee also knows American Morse, I would be happy to send him a modem/converter at no charge and we would welcome his participation in our "roundtable" discussion each week.  If there is anyone else on greenkeys that would be interested in participating in using American Morse, I would be happy to help them.  In addition to having an analog circuit that operates over the phone lines, we have an internet version (used by dozens of people at once).  Here is the link for it:  http://home.earthlink.net/~n7rz/morse/

Some think that learning American Morse will cause them to forget International Morse.  That doesn't seem to be the case.  Almost all of our American Morse participants are also hams active on CW with International Morse.  I'm living proof any one can do it!


73,

Derek Cohn
WBØTUA
Morse Telegraph Club - Alton Chapter