Before applying power, you should turn the motor by hand to be sure the printing mechanism is not frozen due to damage or gunked up grease. 

Just “humming” probably indicates something is frozen and the motor is stalled. I hope he didn’t leave it on long enough to overheat/damage the motor. 

If it wasn’t frozen, you’d expect it to be whirring with gear noises and trying to print blank characters. This is known as “running open” because the signal line is open and that is equivalent to printing blanks. I have never heard a model 26 so someone else should pipe in if it sounds much different from a 15 or 28. But still this should only be a brief test - how far would you drive a car with no oil?

Nick England K4NYW
www.navy-radio.com


On Fri, Apr 19, 2024 at 8:13 PM Champ Champtastic <champtastic13@hotmail.com> wrote:
When one is powered on fir the first time after many, many, many years.....what would you expect the unit to do? Here is what the seller said:

"OK.  I went out to the storage container and plugged the teletype in.  Nothing!  So, I opened the bottom and found this very old 'power strip' looking thing consisting of three 'gang' boxes all hooked together in parallel with some kind of what looks like a fuse. I tested the plugs and there was no power.  So I bypassed the power strip and plugged the power cord coming from the teletype above directly to my extension cord and it turned on. I could here a motor humming!  So, obviously, that antique power strip or whatever its called needs to be upgraded."


Thanks,

Jacob 
W3WDM