[GreenKeys] Off topic you say? Here's your off topic!

[Frank Carraro]

	Since our dear moderator enjoys them from time-to-time, here's one from a
greenkeyer who's been here since before the internet and windoze.  RE:
WESTERN UNION TIME SERVICE and related stuff.
	I have contact with an entity (how's that for keeping it undercover) who
has a collection of Western Union and Self-Winding clocks going back
beaucoup years.   I have information on how they work, and have restored a
Self-Winding (made by the Co. of that name) that quit self winding to
operation.   What I want to do is to install several of these clocks in
different places on the - shall we say - "campus"  or  group of buildings,
and build a circuit (there's plenty of twisted pair around) linking these
clocks - the easy part - with a system that receives time signals off of the
internet and translates it into every-even-hour pulses to maintain these
clocks on time.  The latter is the hard part.

	Some of the info I have about the WU service is interesting.  Even into the
'40's and '50's the service cost like $2.50 a month, and installation was
around $20.00.    WU  had a catalog of over a dozen different clocks - even
desk clocks.  In the early days you could buy your own clock from The
Self-Winding Clock Co (N.Y. and Chi.) and have WU supply the service.  They
were powered by two No. 6  dry cells which ran the motor that wound the
clock every hour.

	Let's have a good O-T scramble now.

Frank