Hello Wayne,nice to meet another WU tech here!  

Yes, the State Police NCIC network was a dedicated line that usually ran down to your Sec of State's office, that ran a query to your state SOS
database and if coded correctly, onto National NCIC in washing dc. 

I remember being able to put a couple of characters in the queries and get a "test" back that did NOT cause a "HIT" so the Police wouldn't
be notified that you were just testing.

In the beginning I liked the mechanical repairs of the TTY's but did not like the electronics, the trouble shooting was something to be desired
if I remember correctly, but as I gained experience I was able to do ok with it.

In around 1975 WU got a contract with a financial company and sent us to IBM Selectric School. Someone built a relay device under the carriage
and their own electronic box as an interface. Interesting school v/s Teletype - But the real nightmare was the mechanics of the form guide contraption
on top of the selectric.

73 de K9DS, Danny





On Wed, Apr 22, 2026 at 10:50 AM WAYNE <teletypeparts@comcast.net> wrote:
When I worked at WU in Wichita, KS my route included a State Police office with a 35 ASR.  NCIC was its designation.  I believe it was on a dedicated line but not sure. 
 
It had a lot of bells and whistles and I was very careful when I did the routine maintenance.  Never had a trouble and glad I didnt. 
 
This was in the early 1970's.
 
73,
 
Wayne
KB1FDW
On 04/21/2026 10:19 PM EDT D Smith via GreenKeys <greenkeys@mailman.qth.net> wrote:
 
 
 
One thing to remember when looking at those TTY's. The baudot models had 3 rows of keys on the keyboard,
and the ASCII models have 4. Quite a few of the police stations had the model 35 ASR. The electronics were
in the stand below and is what usually we were working on when we were called to trouble shoot a problem.
 
When I went down state Illinois, I had about 3 IL State Police Radio stations that had them, they were always
out in the boonies away from town. I think the Sheriffs had them as well. They were later replaced by a small
computer looking terminal device called INCOTERM. It was actually a small computer with magnetic core
memory. It required the operator to type in about 65 characters without mistakes to boot across a network
from Springfield, IL State Police HQ. I never did see the local police pick those computers up to replace the
model 35 ASR.  Hams were only allowed BAUDOT at the time, I did have an 'excess'  Model 33 teletype
hooked up for RTTY back then, but I used a home brew 8080 computer with a translator program I wrote
to use BAUDOT on the air. (That's a nother whole story)
 
73 de K9DS, Danny
 
 
On Tue, Apr 21, 2026 at 11:22 AM Robert Nickels <ranickels@gmail.com> wrote:
On 4/21/2026 11:44 AM, D Smith wrote:
Doug is correct. That other TTY is a model 35. 

Thanks Doug and Danny.   I have a vague recollection of the Model 35 but of course the model 33 was ubiquitous when I started messing with microcomputers in the 70s.   Although few hobbyists could afford them! 

I know that ASCII was just starting to come into widespread use in the late 60s or early 70s when this photo was taken,  so it makes sense that it was connected to a more modern system.    The village of River Forest was quite wealthy, being the home of Paul Harvey, the founder of the Mars candy company, and numerous mobsters -   so they could afford all the newest toys ;-)

73, Bob W9RAN

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