My granddaughter attends a school for gifted children. This spring a festival was held celebrating "Westward Expansion" (the history department's theme for the second half of the school year). As a part of the festival, two homemade (and very unrealistic) telegraph sounders and keys were set up at opposite ends of the school and messages were sent back and forth. It was a tremendous hit with the kids, and oddly enough, with the parents.

The school now wants to set up a couple of telegraph stations in the school using "real" equipment. The school is a legitimate 501c3 non-profit, so any donations would be tax deductible. We're looking for two or three telegraph sounders and appropriate straight keys. Any help in locating these or securing a donation would be greatly appreciated.

PM me for further details.

You want the ham radio clubs, dude, not the railfans:

http://www.hamdepot.com/states/mn.asp

And close to you:

http://www.stpaulradioclub.org/

Most of these clubs, in my experience, have a surplus of equipment, or members getting on in years and eager to get young folks interested in their stuff (the same problem railroad clubs have).

The suggestion of amateur radio groups as a possible source of telegraph keys is right on the money. The key used for radio is essentially the same device used for land based telegraph lines.

But the sounder is not. This device doesn't have a direct counterpart in radiotelegraphy. Depot preservation groups, etc. would be a better source.

Dave Hamley
K3PRR

Your probably looking for a pair of Key On Board units--these are a combination key and sounder unit, much better suited for school use.

Be advised that radio telegraphy uses tone sounders, rather than the railroad mechanical "dot/dash" Also the code sequences are different between American and International---which is what radio people use. Probably not a problem for your usage, but it may considered for historic accuracy.

A good starting resource for American Morse telegraphy is here: http://www.morsetelegraphclub.org/

Michael Seitz
Missoula MT

Mike, thanks for the comments. Key on Board is exactly what I'm looking for. I learned American Morse from the Station Agent in my home town when I was 8 or 9 and learned International a year or two later when I became a ham radio operator. I still use both.

He was in the right place. The technology and even the code is different.

I am not surprised that it went over well. Telegraphy is really the early text message.
When I first joined the Army, Morse was still a useful skill and the allegedly high speed teleprinters which were in use in many places then actually used a Morse circuit. As it fell out of use we forgot about it, The cell phone advanced from the cinder block sized unit that used to sit in my car, (with its own seat belt) to something which looked more like Captain Kirk's communicator. Some years ago as I was beginning to succumb to the idea of text messages by phone I was at the Princeton train station wondering where my daughter was and I received a text which read "C U 5 min". When I later railed about why kids these days could not write in full words and sentences my grand-daughter pointed out that the abbreviations were nothing other than Telegraphers' code. They had reinvented it.

GME

Lionel trains made morse keys during WW2, it'd be ironic to get a set of them to use on this! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-HtcW-rmWM

No shocker there. When my WW2 living history group sets up displays, the things that draw the biggest crowds of adults are the items people can't see in operation anymore. Field phones, typewriters, old Speed Graphic cameras and morse operations (which I've only seen set up once at an event) are extremely popular because that's often the only place you can see them being used at all or have their functions explained by people who know how to use them.

Just goes to prove that stuffed and mounted is the WORST way to have an exhibit.

Those teleprinters, at least the Model 16 & 19 Teletypes used Baudot Code, not morse. It was a 5 bit "word".

In 1967 when I had a job at ITT on Broad St NYC, 1/3rd of the international teletype traffic (ATT & RCA I think had the other 3rds) across the Atlantic was funneled through that facility. It was all Baudot Code & routed served by one of those newfangled computers - a PDP-1 with a whole 10K of "core" storage.

That was state of the art technology getting away from mechanical multiplexers and other "Frankenstein" machines which tended to break down on occasion given the number of "repair technicians" employed. Things were transitioning fast back then & nothing remains of that facility.

The speed of the Teletypes, BTW was around 5 CPS (characters per second). The shop was unionized by the Communication Workers of America - my first & only union card.