Duncan’s AWA talk here shows tape relay in action
https://youtu.be/XFkwWZ6ujy0

Lots more info on tape relay here
https://www.navy-radio.com/tty-relay.htm

And a history of the Navy’s teletype network which IIRC mentions the big improvement from retyping to repeating
https://www.navy-radio.com/manuals/ntx/NTX-story.pdf

Yes one reperf per incoming line. And one (or two) TDs per outgoing line. 

The 6 TD transmitting unit ran 3 channels and two TDs acted in ping-pong fashion. 
Here’s mine operating during testing. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRdK8ZvXNcI

The channels between torn tape relay stations were always connected - either leased lines or full 24/7 radioteletype links. 

Nick England K4NYW
Chapel Hill NC
www.navy-radio.com


On Thu, Jan 22, 2026 at 12:55 PM Harold Hallikainen via GreenKeys <greenkeys@mailman.qth.net> wrote:
This is all amazing history. There was mention of the reperf in torn tape
relay. For some reason, I can see hand keyed relay for Morse, but retyping
everything for relay just seems like a LOT of work. Anyway, this made me
think of torn tape relay, which I think of as early packet switching (each
message is a packet) and very clever.

On torn tape relay, I THINK there was a reperf on each incoming line, and
a TD on each outgoing line (and these may be the same wires through
duplexing techniques). So, did one person watch several reperfs for end of
message, tear the tape, and take it to the appropriate TD? Was the TD
sitting there idle? If so, it seems like there would be a lot of wasted
circuit capacity. Ideally, the TD would be transmitting continuously.
Perhaps new torn tape would be spliced to the existing torn tape waiting
to be sent. Or, the whole thing could be automated entirely
electromechanically. Each message would have a series of routing codes at
the beginning of the message. The receiving unit would decode the first
routing code (possibly using a distributor and a bunch of relays), then
pass the remaining message (with more routing codes) on to a reperf that
is continuously feeding a TD on an outgoing line. The reperf/TD would be
an electromechanical FIFO buffer.

So... how did relaying work, and what was its history?

Harold
https://w6iwi.org

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