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Vintage Amateur and Military Radio Amateur/military receivers and transmitters, morse, and any other related vintage comms equipment. |
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23rd Mar 2024, 1:56 am | #1 |
Pentode
Join Date: Apr 2014
Location: Kirkwall, Orkney, UK.
Posts: 165
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Telegraphist - details?
pls see attached picture. can anybody comment more precisely on what equipment is in use here?
the photograph is of a GPO person at Kettletoft Post Office (island of Sanday in Orkney) main question is - is this a cable telegraph or a wireless telegraph set? |
23rd Mar 2024, 11:54 am | #2 | |
Pentode
Join Date: Sep 2019
Location: Perth, Western Australia, Australia.
Posts: 200
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Re: Telegraphist - details?
Quote:
An undersea cable would probably use a sounder like were used on terrestrial landlines when I was a kid. I know little about the UK GPO system, but back in the early/mid 1960s, some remote communities in Western Australia used WT as a backup to the landline systems. The Postmaster knew Morse, as it was part of the Qualification for Postal Clerk/Telegraphist. In 1967, when I first went North with the Postmaster General's Dept, most places had gone over to carrier telegraph & telephone systems, the former using Teleprinters. The backup was SSB radio for the Phone, & a small capacity Voice Frequency Telegraph (VFT) setup on a spare SSB system. |
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23rd Mar 2024, 7:51 pm | #3 |
Tetrode
Join Date: Mar 2011
Location: Western Isles of Scotland, UK.
Posts: 52
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Re: Telegraphist - details?
My daughter is a teacher on Sanday. I've asked her to investigate!
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27th Mar 2024, 10:02 am | #4 |
Tetrode
Join Date: Mar 2011
Location: Western Isles of Scotland, UK.
Posts: 52
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Re: Telegraphist - details?
Sanday connected to Main Orkney by cable in 1880.
Nothing on Miss Muir but a 1910 photo shows another female telegraphist, Miss Margaret J. Sinclair, operating from what is clearly the same place, (note the curtains, desk and key). The occasion was the opening of a radio link to Northronaldsay, which had no under sea cable, that island's first connection to the outside world. The photo shows, quote, ''sending a telegram and receiving one on the Marconi Wireless'' A Sanday resident writes '' Sanday had both cable and wireless telegraph connections. The straight key in the photo may have been used on either, but the wireless transmitter aerial was in the yard adjacent to Harbour House so the balance of probability is that this is the radio operating position''. The aerials are Sanday on the left and Ronaldsay on the right. Richard |