[GreenKeys] Western Union film

[Richard Knoppow]

    There have been some good books on the history of WU. One can 
find system maps on the web. Note that WU was the first 
nationwide company. People think it was a railroad but no 
railroad was more than regional. WU predates the telephone 
company by about thirty years and it was some time before Bell 
System/AT&T created a nationwide system. To me it is fascinating 
history.

On 6/20/2020 10:31 AM, Robert Nickels wrote:
> On 6/19/2020 9:54 PM, Russ Miller wrote:
>>
>>
>> In addition, WU would lease capacity from AT&T when the need 
>> was there. AT&T would also lease capacity from WU from time to 
>> time.
>>
>>
>> WU has a limited local distribution network, in major cities, 
>> all copper which was augmented by leased circuits from the 
>> local Bell Company under a nationwide contrac
>>
> Thanks Russ and Jim.   My question was about their network in a 
> broad sense, whether it was wireline or microwave, but the 
> answer clearly is that Western Union indeed did build and 
> maintain it's own infrastructure.
>
> I found a good paper that describes the history of the WU 
> microwave relay system, including their negotiations with the 
> Forest Service, here:
>
> https://historycooperative.org/journal/towers-for-telegrams-the-western-union-telegraph-company-and-the-emergence-of-microwave-telecommunications-infrastructure/ 
>
>
> A research engineer for WU also wrote an article "Radio Beam 
> Telegraphy" that includes photos of equipment and more details 
> of the first multiplexing systems, which was published in the 
> Oct. 1946 issue of Railway Signalling magazine, that can be 
> viewed on Google Books:
>
> https://www.google.com/books/edition/_/L4_mAAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA666&dq=western+union+network+wireline 
>
>
> The first article above also contains many interesting looking 
> links for anyone interested.    Your comment about "copper" is 
> pertinent because the 1946 article notes that in recent years 
> all the iron wire in its network had been replaced with copper!
>
> 73,   Bob W9RAN
>
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-- 
Richard Knoppow
1oldlens1 at ix.netcom.com
WB6KBL