[GreenKeys] Associated Press Teletype maintenance

[Sheldon Daitch]

Jim,


that post card is dated 1983, after I left the Raleigh AP bureau, but at that time, 1979, the AP techs did all the maintenance on the M-15/M-20 machines.

About the only customer maintenance that I can remember from way back then was the hot shoe paper developer cleaning on the LaserPhoto machines.

I can venture a guess, though, for perhaps the AP was trying the phase out the M-15/M-20 printers with the Extel machines, at some extra cost to the subscriber, and maybe it was some trade off to keep the older machines going, by letting stations do the oiling and the AP techs did not have to travel to do other than non-routine maintenance?

Most stations tended to have someone with some maintenance skills and maybe it was just simply squirt some oil on the main shaft felts and that would do it.

I cannot image the AP expecting the stations to pull  a main shaft, disassemble it, put in new felts and put it all back together.

With that said, though, I think back in the 1960s, the AP upped the speed on the slow speed wire circuits and may have sent out new motor and main shaft gears, with the intention of station techs doing the parts swap.  As I recall, the speed change was done by state, not nationwide, so maybe some AP techs from neighboring states could be on call to service border area stations if there were problems.

73

Sheldon


________________________________
From: GreenKeys <greenkeys-bounces at mailman.qth.net> on behalf of Jim Haynes <jhhaynes at earthlink.net>
Sent: Saturday, November 19, 2016 2:26 AM
To: greenkeys at mailman.qth.net
Subject: [GreenKeys] Associated Press Teletype maintenance


I never knew until today that AP customers were expected to take care of
oiling the Teletype machines.  A friend showed me this card.

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