[GreenKeys] M19 troubleshooting

[kh-phillips at 9-5usa.org]

Thanks for the suggestions I received on dealing with the problem.  I
worked with it quite a bit yesterday evening.  It *may* have resolved
itself.  I was told that this machine had not been used at all in around
40 years so perhaps there was some obstruction or just old lubrication
that had dried.  Of course, I cannot rule out the possibility of operator
error either but I don't think that was the case most of the time.

Here's a little bit of information for what it's worth.  The rangefinder
is set on 65.  As someone thought, the letter-O and number-9 were *not*
being printed when the error occurred; the carriage would simply return. 
The error was occurring even when I was typing by hand ("hunt and peck"). 
My regular typing speed isn't exactly machine speed but it is faster than
the one-fingered speed.   I don't think the error was occurring past the
point in the line I mentioned.  Also, if I typed, for example, a "P" in
"country" in place of "O" in "now is the time . . . " and then resumed
typing as normal, the error would not occur.

I sat and typed to try to observe the positions of the vanes as suggested
when the carriage reached the point where the error was occurring.  I
couldn't be quite sure but perhaps the 4th vane was not quite the same
angle as the 5th.  Anyway, the more I worked with it, the less the error
appeared.  I tried wiping the vanes with a paper towel to remove any
foreign matter that might be there.  I did also move the carriage to the
right manually and then back.  After 20-30 minutes of working with it the
error seemed to go away.  I began typing the test sentences over and over.
 The error had been appearing after about the 4th time of typing a
sentence *if* the sentence were typed completely correctly.  Of course,
that is where the operator error comes in because I can rarely type a
sentence exactly the same way that many times!  I ran through a few feet
of paper and after awhile the error only appeared once more.

I will continue working with it to see if it occurs again and will try to
make more observations about the code bars and vanes.  After I finished my
session of typing last night my hands and forearms felt like I had had a
strenuous workout at a gym! I haven't had that much of a workout since I
typed on my grandmother's Underwood typewriter many years ago!  Now I've
got great admiration for the TTY operators!  (I may need to remove the
typing unit and clean the keyboard because some of the keys were sticking.
 The keytops really started flying off as well.)

Thanks again for all the help.

73
Kevin
KE5CQJ