[GreenKeys] Western Union Desk Fax Machines

[dbonamo at aprsnet.net]

I got one of these now, had one back in the 70's when there was some paper
available.

They did smell when printing....

>
> yes ... part of communications history.....
> we have a great display showing just about anything and everything to
> automate and office except some of these! Even have early wax cylinder
> Dictaphone machines!
>
> Ed# _www.smecc.org_ (http://www.smecc.org/)
>
>
>
>
>
> In a message dated 2/18/2013 1:19:53 P.M. Mountain Standard Time,
> teletypeparts at aol.com writes:
>
> 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
> California about 1970-71 as someone offered a truckload of them to hams at
>  something like $ 10 each via notices to radio clubs.  I traveled to San
> Jose
>  to get one, where there was a fellow with a U-Haul truck unloading them
> in
> a
>  parking lot, and a line of hams carrying them off.
>
>  There were two varieties of machine, Deskfax and Telefax.  Most were
>  Deskfax.  The Telefax made a positive image while the Deskfax a negative,
> at
>  least as we were able to configure them over radio.  The mod involved
> adding
>  a toggle switch and some wiring.  There was a messy red ink roller which
>  marked outgoing telegrams to indicate they had been sent, which was one
> of
>  the things you removed when you installed the mod.  I recall a rather
>  extensive modification and construction article about these units in a
>  contemporary ARRL or E&E radio amateur's handbook.  We used them on 440
> MHz
>  although the mods I made didn't allow the pages to synch up and the
> images
>  would usually be split somewhere.
>
>  Under certain circumstances you could get a shock from the high voltage
>  printing stylus, since the back of the paper was metalized.  The stylus
> was
>  a thin piece of wire like a bristle from a wire brush.  The machines gave
>  out 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
>  sitting on a desk in an office.
>
>  Most of the these got junked out years ago when the fascination subsided.
>  There must be some still lying around in attics and garages though.
>
>  Geoff
>  WB6NVH
>
>
>
>
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