[GreenKeys] Associated Press Teletype maintenance

[Jim Haynes]

A few years back I was given a M15 machine that had apparently been
abandoned by AP at a radio station and taken home by the station
engineer when he retired.  Two documents came with it, which I have
attached.  One is pretty clearly aimed at maintenance people with some
training, but the other calling for a change to 50 baud gears seems
to be aimed at the station personnel.  Too bad the letter of transmittal
is not dated.  In any event when I got the machine it was still geared for
45 baud.  Maybe the speed change never took place in this neck of the
woods.

The machine in the pictures appears to have the Teletype Corp. solid state
selector magnet driver replacing the polar relay.

It's curious that they give increased speed as the reason for the
change, yet the change from 45 to 50 baud produces only a modest increase
in speed.  They could have gone to 75 wpm gears for the 15s and got
more speed out of them.

Something else I've been meaning to ask about - this machine like a number
of others I have seen had the "Associated Press" placard on the front of
the cover.  In my youth when I hung around newspapers and radio stations
watching the Teletype machinery I don't recall those placards being on
the machines.  My guess is that they came into use in connection with
television stations broadcasting pictures of their news rooms and all
the different wire service Teletypes they had.  Each wire service then
needed to show its presence among its competitors.

Another curiosity about this machine is that it was not on a Teletype
Corp. table, but on a homemade table, made from the kind of steel angle
stock sold at hardware stores, and plywood.  And there was a sticker on
the table with instructions for setting a timer clock; so apparently
they had a clock to turn the machine on and off at certain times of day.
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