[GreenKeys] Western Union Desk Fax Machines

[Teletypeparts]

I worked on the Deskfax at WU in the late 60's  and early 70's.  There was one model that went to WU central office and it would send or receive and this was the most common one.  I saw a few that would go to another model of the same type over a phone line without going thru WU central office.  Wish I could remember the model numbers.  

Wayne


-----Original Message-----
From: Geoff Fors <Geoff at wb6nvh.com>
To: greenkeys <greenkeys at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Mon, Feb 18, 2013 1:35 pm
Subject: [GreenKeys] Western Union Desk Fax Machines


W-U seems to have cleaned out a warehouse of those fax machines in 
alifornia about 1970-71 as someone offered a truckload of them to hams at 
omething like $ 10 each via notices to radio clubs.  I traveled to San Jose 
o get one, where there was a fellow with a U-Haul truck unloading them in a 
arking lot, and a line of hams carrying them off.
There were two varieties of machine, Deskfax and Telefax.  Most were 
eskfax.  The Telefax made a positive image while the Deskfax a negative, at 
east as we were able to configure them over radio.  The mod involved adding 
 toggle switch and some wiring.  There was a messy red ink roller which 
arked outgoing telegrams to indicate they had been sent, which was one of 
he things you removed when you installed the mod.  I recall a rather 
xtensive modification and construction article about these units in a 
ontemporary ARRL or E&E radio amateur's handbook.  We used them on 440 MHz 
lthough the mods I made didn't allow the pages to synch up and the images 
ould usually be split somewhere.
Under certain circumstances you could get a shock from the high voltage 
rinting stylus, since the back of the paper was metalized.  The stylus was 
 thin piece of wire like a bristle from a wire brush.  The machines gave 
ut some smoke and a stink when "printing" a page.
There was a Hepburn-Tracy movie in the early 1950's which shows one of these 
itting on a desk in an office.
Most of the these got junked out years ago when the fascination subsided. 
here must be some still lying around in attics and garages though.
Geoff
B6NVH 
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