[GreenKeys] Teletype M12 KSR

[Don Robert House K9TTY]

Duncan,

There are some wrinkles in production  and supply caused by customer demand.  Teletype discontinues a product and after a couple of customers scream they temporarily support the product… usually with parts in stock. At Illinois Bell we had a few model 15s and 19s in service as late as 1968. I replaced a 19 at Ball Brothers Glass Company with a 33ASR and the operator quit. We had a M15 at the American Wilbert Vault Company with a tabulator that could be set by the operator.  They had been a customer so long that when we replaced it with a 28KSR our company did not raise the monthly charges… we replaced it after running out of parts.

The dates I have for the Model 12 start is 1923… the first customer was the Chicago and Alton Railroad, however the first commercially successful M12 deployment was the Associated Press.

In 1932 the Model 14 strip printer started taking many orders for manual TWX and in 1935 the Model 15 started up replacing the Model 12, however support for the M12 was kept on until 1937.
Because of WWII most Teletype machines demand was the US military forces and so the civilians that had not had their M12s replaced had to make do with the M12 until Teletype could make enough Model 15s to satisfy demand.  The first machines used by amateurs were the M12 followed by the Model 26.  The 12 is a primitive machine and most hams junked them when they could get a replacement.  

This is how I understand the time line.  My fathers ship took an M15 aboard in 1943 for their radio room just before the ship was commissioned. 

I picked up the M12KSR I had from a 96 year old ham in Standard, CA.  He had a quonset hut filled with radio and RTTY equipment left over from supporting the March Air Force base after a plane crashed into the base radio communications facility.  First I found the typing unit, then the keyboard… We could not find the base and legs.  After returning to SoCal I got an email from the elderly ham that said he found the table for the machine under a wood pile next to his mobile home. Al Tipsword deliver the table to me the next weekend when we met in Fresno. I was thrilled at the time.  The machine now is at Steve Ripper's home in Michigan minus the cover which was never located.  Both the M12 that Doug and Jerry have have covers.

Best,
Don
K9TTY

here are a couple photos from Fresno and of the M12 Electrical Service Unit.

  
 
On 22 Jan 2015, at 7:27 PM, Duncan Brown wrote:

> Don,
> 
> Thanks for the inventory!  I was just telling the AWA Museum Curator (as he helped me carry the M12 into the Museum) that there were probably no more than a half dozen M12s in existence.
> 
> What were the manufacturing dates of the M12?

> Duncan
> 
> On 22-Jan-15 13:37, Don Robert House K9TTY wrote:
>> The four known owners of Model 12 KSR machines are:
>> 
>> AWA Museum (Duncan Brown)
>> Doug Alderdice (East Coast)
>> Steve Ripper (Midwest)
>> Jerry Block (West Coast)
>> 
>> Don
>> K9TTY
>> 

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