[GreenKeys] Telewriter

Mon Apr 16 17:45:19 EDT 2018

I was in the Air Force from 1969 until 1973,  and in Taiwan from spring 
1970 until summer 1971.  I finished my term at Griffiss AFB near Utica, 
New York. In Taiwan, the teleypes were maintained by military people, at 
Griffiss, many of them were civilians. The person in charge of the shop 
there was civilian and a very distasteful person. Despite his best 
efforts, several of us managed to get and take home model 28s piece by 
piece. Mine was not cheap- a full case of Chivas Regal whiskey to be 
split between a friend in the teletype shop and another in base supply.  
Mine was a genuine returned Vietnam "veteran",  but with a little help 
it was running fine. For whatever reason, Kleinschmidts were not easy to 
get through the back channels, but by 1975, they were abundant and often 
free at hamfests.

       Bruce Gentry,  KA2IVY

On 4/16/18 3:55 PM, Steve Garrison wrote:
> What years were you in the AF?
>
> Steve G./N4TTY
> Sent from my iPhone
>
>> On Apr 16, 2018, at 3:50 PM, Bruce Gentry <ka2ivy at verizon.net> wrote:
>>
>> At the time I was in the Air Force, ground radio people were responsible for fax machines, and the Telautograph was included with them. Although we did not receive any specific instruction, PA systems, theater sound systems, two-way radios for the engineering squadrons and air police, electronic organs, phonographs and tape recorders were also our work. In reality, except for the fax machines, 99% of our work was the trans-pacific HF equipment and airfield communications. Ground radio had one of the widest and most interesting work definitions, but in reality, we rarely got to work on the enjoyable stuff and instead had constant service calls on worn out WW2 and Korean War junk that should have gone to Fair Radio in 1955.
>>
>>       Bruce Gentry, KA2IVY
>>
>>> On 4/16/18 2:31 PM, Steve Garrison wrote:
>>> So the radio techs got training on Teleautograph?  I was a teletype tech but we maintained the equipment on Kadena while I was there from 68 to 70.  But never was trained on them.  Just OJT training!
>>>
>>> Steve G./N4TTY
>>> Sent from my iPhone
>>>
>>>> On Apr 16, 2018, at 10:35 AM, Bruce Gentry <ka2ivy at verizon.net> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> I was one of the last people to receive training on repairing the Telautograph in the Air Force almost fifty years ago.  So late in fact, that we were stopped in the middle of the course and told  the devices were being taken out of service and the training was no longer needed.  True to their word, the Telautographs at the base I was assigned to were trashed  three weeks before I got there.  Oh well, I still got to " enjoy " working on the Dictachron Time Announcer in the control tower. It used a 16 MM. magnetic film tape in a transport that was a mashup of a motion picture projector and a video recorder. It was totally worn out, unreliable, and a big nuisance with it's at least once daily service calls.  Despite craft compartmentalization, radio techies were unofficially expected to know how to change ribbons, bulbs, and paper in teletypes, as well as how to peck out a readable message to other stations. The people in the teletype shop became good friends with us.
>>>>
>>>>        Bruce Gentry, KA2IVY
>>>>
>>>>> On 4/16/18 6:39 AM, Steve Garrison wrote:
>>>>> The Teleautographs that I worked on while in the USAF during the late 60s wrote on a wide paper that was on a roll as best as I can remember.  It didn't use an 'electrical' pen, but used a ball point pen attached to rods that actuated servos to register its horizontal and vertical position on the paper.  This info was sent to the pen on the other end of the circuit that mimicked the sending pen and thus made a copy of the sending pen's message.  It was used where I was stationed to send weather updates and ground conditions between the control tower, air traffic control, and the meteorologists.
>>>>>
>>>>> Steve G./N4TTY
>>>>> Sent from my iPhone
>>>>>
>>>>>> On Apr 15, 2018, at 11:12 PM, Richard Knoppow <1oldlens1 at ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>    Don't do this to me. There is a machine of the sort you describe but its name is hiding behind the green curtain with the Wizard of Oz. Will come back to me before long. Telautograph, it just popped out. See
>>>>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telautograph
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On 4/15/2018 3:41 PM, JC White wrote:
>>>>>>> I thought these machines made remote copies of hand written text or drawings.. originally signatures then expanded to "remote blackboard" operation...  anybody try Google yet?
>>>>>>> John
>>>>>>> WB6BLV
>>>>>> -- 
>>>>>> Richard Knoppow
>>>>>> 1oldlens1 at ix.netcom.com
>>>>>> WB6KBL
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