[GreenKeys] Western-Union time service

[pdwills at cedarknolltelephone.com]

I have five Self Winding clocks working in the house as well
as a few stepping clocks.  When I installed them, I didn't
have a master clock so I built a homebrew unit based on a
Motorola MM5311 clock chip.  I eventually picked up a master
clock which is running but I'm to lazy to transfer the
slaves to it.

Penn Station, New York had a number of SW clocks working
into the early 1980's.  The master clocks dated from the
original station and were still driving the modern digital
"airport style" clocks that were being used.

The Bell System also had a number of SW clocks in use.  I
even have the BSPs for maintaining them.  One clock I have
has a set of 6 second contacts to drive the switchboard
clocks.

I guess I was lucky.  I showed up at Amtrak during the last
years of the selector ringers, Self Winding clocks and
teletypes.  A few years later, they would have been all
gone.

PDW

----- Original Message Follows -----
From: "bill riches" <bill.riches at verizon.net>
To: <brooke at pacific.net>, <greenkeys at mailman.qth.net>
Subject: Re: [GreenKeys] Western-Union time service
Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2009 09:10:31 -0500

> I have had a WU clock running in my shack for about 10
> years now.  I replace two "d" cells once a year and it
> keeps time to a few min a month.  Reset once a month.  A
> surplus company in North Jersey was selling them for about
> $ 100.00 when I purchased mine. I took it apart - cleaned
> and oiled it and found a date of 1920 scratched inside. 
> The bushings were quite worn into an oval in some cases
> but it keeps on ticking.  For more info look at "American
> Clocks" volume 2 by Tran Duy Ly starting on page 177. I
> heard that when WU discontinued the clock service they
> told their customers that they could keep their clocks.  I
> would imagine that a lot of them walked out of their
> office location the next day!!
> 
> 73
>