NYT News Wire recordings from 1951

 The newspapers got their stories across the wire via telegraph right up to the 1950s.

These audio recordings and transcriptions were created in 1951. 
I found the recordings created for the Morse Telegraph Club at the Internet Archive here:

https://archive.org/details/NewYorkTimesMorseWireLastDay1951

The speed these old time telegraphers could send and receive at was phenomenal, the speeds here are a steady 60 WPM!

To give you a feel for the speed here is the first message, a recording of a news story sent by telegraphers Jack Goulette and Ralph Cahall over The New York Times Morse wire to the Times telegraph office in New York, at a speed up to 60 words a minute. Dan Reeves was the receiver in New York.:

Message Link

A transcription of the message follows, converted from the Phillips code that the telegraphers were actually sending of course.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

1w.

No. FOUR ....LEND— LEASE....(WAGGONER)

    WASHINGTON, April 7~—-The United States has formally demanded
again, in the face of a flat refusal, that the Soviet Union return
some 670 ships this government made available to its Russian ally
under the Lend~Lease agreement of the last war.

The demand was made on the highest level, with a note from
Secretary of State Dean Acheson handed yesterday to Alexander S.
Panyushkin, the Soviet Ambassador. The message answered a Soviet note
of March 21 stating that the United States had agreed to sell the ships
and declining therefore to consider their return.

Also for a second time, Secretary Acheson asked that United
States representatives be allowed to examine the vessels described by
Moscow as "badly worn out and for the most part unfit for navigation
in the open sea."

The Secretary emphasized that “the title to these vessels
remains in the Government of the United States regardless of their
condition." He therefore repeated the request that this government
be permitted to "examine all unserviceable vessels in order to
determine their ultimate disposition.”

By citing various joint statements and agreements between
Washington and Moscow going back four years, Mr. Acheson denied that
the United States had “agreed” to sell the ships to the Soviet Union.

                (MORE)

                    Huston

                        --mm655pm--

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Imagine working at that speed all day!

To add to the fun, these expert telegraphers could receive the message and translate it from the Phillips code in their head and type it into the their Mills IN REAL TIME!!!

73
Ciao
KJ Editor
and AlbertaMTCwire Wire-Chief

AlbertaMTCwire Project What is needed?

 In this second post on the proposal for the #AlbertaMTCwire I will try to outline a rough series of phases for the project.

Originally posted to the Alberta-MTC@groups.io list back in Nov 2022.

There are two sides to this project:
A) The collection of information about what Museums have telegraph equipment, what equipment is displayed, and what interest there might be in coming along for the ride :-)
B) The process of creating the actual system to link all the displays.
Both apply to nearly every phase although some have an emphasis on one or the other.

What follows is a kind of...

<<<< Brainstorm of what is needed? >>>>

While these groupings are roughly in time order much of this can be done at the same time as interest, money, and people are available.  Don't let the length of this list daunt you, if this project starts to take off remember we are (re)building a system that has not existed for more than 50 years!

Here goes.
 
Identify Team members
  HPMTC?
    KJ, Ken, ?
  MTC?
  Museums?
  VSA?
  Others

Data collection
  Identify museums and contacts
  Reach out to contacts about project
  Increase contacts for Alberta-MTC groups.io

Proof of Concept for connectivity
  MorseKOB interfaces
    RaspberryPi interfaces
      Reach out to LandlineMorse and MoresKOB group members
    Laptop interfaces
      As above plus Chip Morgan's Elk Creek Enterprises
  KOBserver structure
    Wire nomenclature
    Private Wires
    Procedures
      Event operations
      Demo operations
    Test using an interface from HP to AlbertaMTCwire  
  Laptop turnkey design
  RaspberryPi turnkey design

Funding
  Determine costs for:
    Interfaces
    Travel
    Domain/Hosting
  Estimate timing
    POC
    Initial setups
    Roll out
    Expansion
  Grant Applications
    Heritage Alberta (by Feb 2023)
    Alberta Museums Association
    CN/CP?
    Others
  Publicity
    Dots and Dashes
    HP?
    MTC
    Railway groups
    Others?    

Administration
  Alberta MTC
    Committee
    Society?
  KOBserver
    Hosting
    Wire-chief group
    Open Key Problem
      Hardware failure
      Operator error
      Call out
    Segmenting wires
      By org
      By region
    Planned system wide events
      Railway Days
      Festivals
      DOY
      Field Days
    General connections
      Private Wires
      Through wires
      Demo wires
  Interface Mfg
    Commercial or Hobbyists    
  Training
    Practices
    Docent training
      Package for each installation
      Support line/group      
    
Implementation
  Guinea Pigs (HP + ? )
  Expansion
    Incremental based on funding or...
      Big Bang!
        If we are going to go go big!
    Beyond Alberta
    Beyond Canada

Documentation
  Website
  Mail list
  Training/Practice Resources  


Phew!
I will concentrate on each of the main sections as I do some more thinking on all this.
As always comments, suggestions, and expressions of interest, or brickbats, welcome :-)
73
Ciao
KJ