We have a Waterfall at the AWA Museum. My experience in the Army
(mostly at the company level, not relay) was that messages came in,
were printed directly, and then delivered.
I couldn't understand why messages would come in, be printed, and
then be directly archived after viewing (with the waterfalls).
Outgoing messages in the Army tape relays were archived on tape,
which would take up less room than printed copies.
But printing out incoming messages that are going to be relayed on
tape makes sense now.
Duncan
K2OEQ
On 19-Feb-24 10:40, Jeff G wrote:
The waterfalls have paper reels inside that collect the
printed paper. I think they were basically considered
monitoring/logging - you can read the print but once it
scrolls past its basically "archived".
Jeff kC3GJX
On Mon, Feb 19, 2024 at
9:46 AM Duncan Brown <[email protected]>
wrote:
Nick,
Finally got a chance to read "Huh? Whadya Say?" - it seemed
to be a good description of life in a torn-tape relay center
in their heyday. I was never in one (I was in Army tactical
TTY and then moved over into electronic communications
repair), but am familiar with the equipment & jargon.
The story answered one question I have had: how was the
"Waterfall" (3-4 M28 printers in a cabinet) used? According
to Guy, they were using the printers to monitor the incoming
messages that would also be punched into tape for relaying.
If there was any garble on an incoming tape, it would
normally not be noticed and just be relayed on to the next
station. By having the message printed out, it could be
quickly scanned for quality before the garbled taped message
was relayed on.
But as Guy tells, they were pretty busy pulling &
pushing tape and I don't think they would have much time to
look at print outs at the same time!
Thanks,
Duncan
K2OEQ
On 04-Feb-24 13:34, Nick England wrote:
I unexpectedly came across "Huh? Whadya Say?:
Inside a Torn Tape Relay Center" by Guy Thompson.
I really enjoyed reading this short novel about
life in a Torn Tape Relay (NAVCOMMSTA Philippines
Vietnam era). It seems like a well-written authentic
story portraying the constant workload in a major
relay and fleet support center.
It's a quick (71 pages) but very interesting
read - $1 on Kindle or $5 for the paperback