[GreenKeys] Kleinschmidts and Boatanchors ... In Ho Chi Minh City

[Jim Andrew]

Somehow for my sins I found myself transferred to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam last year. (Actually, not such a bad place these days.) This put a damper on both greenkeys (I have a Model 15, Model 19 set, Model 28 RO and Kleinschmidt TT-119/179 set) and boatanchor restoration. 
 
I did find a way to get a partial fix, however. In the basement of "Reunification Palace", formerly the President's residence and central government building for South Vietnam, I stumbled on a fine batch of Kleinschmidt teleprinting gear plus some interesting boatanchors in an area ostensibly set up to show the layout during the war years. I posted pictures at:
 
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/jimandrew@sbcglobal.net/album?.dir=/1ba0scd&.src=ph&.tok=phh9fOFBzyye9_Xo
 
In the Teleprinter Section room there are 5 sets of Kleinschmidt TT-119B/FG teleprinters with companion TT-178B/FG reperforating transmitters and TT-65/FG tables. Serial number tags either say "Kleinschmidt Division of SCM" or "Kleinschmidt Division of Smith Corona Marchant". When nobody was around I popped the tops of the closest machines in the pictures - they were dirty, but looked complete (I was wondering if they had been purposefully disabled.) The reperforators were certainly in better shape than mine, but somehow I don't think the current owners will be game for a trade. 
 
In the back right corner of the room there are 2 stand-alone Kleinschmidt teleprinters on their own matching single stands. These looked like they were also TT-119's because they had the full switch sets and lights on both sides of the keys. I couldn't get close enough to read the tags.
 
There was also a nice Model 28 KSR on the back wall as well as a single Teletype Model 30-something. Both were in the common civilian paint schemes. (Maybe the military did not have special paint requirements.)
 
On the boatanchor side, the main Transmitting Room has a beautiful Gates HFIM transmitter, a couple of Temco transmitters (model unknown) and several military transmitters including a handful of T-368 C and E/URT's. Among other items in the Mobile Room were 2 Collins R-441/TRC-68 sets - one had frequency presets for "Paris", 2338, 2325, and 2480 (presumably kHz). 
 
The Fixed Receiving Site had a Hallicrafters Hurricane ham-band transciever (I hadn't seen one of these before), a reasonable Hammarlund HQ-145A without clock (it was safe because it also didn't have any of the knobs I need for my HQ-180) and a half-dozen R-390's. At least one of the 390's was an A model; I couldn't read the other tags. 
 
Regards, 
 
Jim Andrew
3W / K5UI