[Qcwa] WWII RTTY

Wed, 6 Aug 2003 15:43:52 -0400

The high speed CW circuits at WAR were the backbone of traffic handling.
With Kleinschmidt perforators and Boehme keying heads with inked slip
recorders all functioning at speeds over 100 wpm under normal conditions.
Under marginal conditions the operators had to revert top manual operation;
these were all skilled operators most of whom could copy 50 wpm and more.
On the far wall of the station was a bank of teletype machines....mostly
Model 12.....equipped with perforators for tape.  These circuits were used
mainly for administrative traffic within the USA.  We did have a single
circuit to London which used an ancient very slow machine but after
Eisenhowers headquarters was created radio circuits were established.
During 1942 IBM had a bank of what they called "radiotype" machines.  They
were the old original IBM electrics with tape perforators added.
They ran about 100 wpm(when functioning) and the clatter from the keys
hitting the roller was tremendous.
Often when a key struck the roller just right the entire font head would fly
off from the impact.
This was largely experimental and required an engineer at the station at all
times to keep it running.
During my time there 41-42 they did not use any RTTY whatsoever;  all TTY
was via phone lines.

73    Norm    K1AA

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Harvey&Bessie" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, August 05, 2003 11:13 PM
Subject: Re: [Qcwa] WWII RTTY

> As he said, it wasn't RTTY but ultra high-speed cw! Those guys who could
read those Bohme
> tapes were really gifted. Most that tried (in a Special school) were
washed out after only
> a week or so.
>
> Harvey/W4TG
>
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