[GreenKeys] wooden-cased TTY on ebay

[Richard Dillman]

>It looks exactly like a Morse perforator.  And...upon close 
>inspection of the tape punch
>head, you see a two-level perforator with a center sprocket 
>punch.  Morse tape was
>a two level system to drive an on-off keying arrangement.  Although 
>it is labeled
>as a teletype perforator, it's just a Morse perforator made by Teletype Corp.

Correct, OM.  And they are typically called "Kleinschmidts" or "Kleins".  We have several in service at KSM.

>And it will never sell for that price! (Unless someone has a CW museum?)
>I have had two of them over the years and still have one.  They are
>useless unless you have a Boehme or McElroy keying head to send the CW.
>Today's computers do this with software.

<gak!>  

Well, yes, that's true.  But for the full effect of time travel one must punch the tape (wearing one's green eyeshade), make a loop of it (for a the repeating "wheel") and glue the ends together with mucilage (nothing else will do).

When I first started punching tape on the Klein I quickly realized there was no way to correct a mistake.  So I asked some of the old timers how they handled that situation.  They looked at me in my eye and said "we didn't make mistakes".  Not boasting, mind.  Just stating the fact.

We have several Boehme keying heads in service.  While these can be used at 20-30wpm for the wheel or the traffic list, these devices have a three speed transmission a variable speed DC motor and a cool spedometer.  You can crank 'em up to 120wpm or higher (depending on model).  These speeds were used to put traffic across point to point circuits, especially during the war.  

At the receive end the incoming signal was recorded as an undulating line on paper tape by a siphon pen.  Banks of operators sat before typewriters across which the tape was drawn.  They read the tape and typed the message.  There are photos of all this on our Web site (URL below)

>W1AW used this older system until 30-40 years ago.  Maritime Coastal stations
>did also, but in later years switched to computers.

Blasphemy.  Well, actually we do send the press and weather from computers at KSM.  But when men were men...

RD

=================================
Richard Dillman
Chief Operator, Coast Station KSM
Maritime Radio Historical Society
http://www.radiomarine.org
=================================