An Instrument from Old "DO" Telegraph Office, West Roanoke

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When I was about 12 years old, my father brought home this cute little
local telegraph sounder for me.  It is from the old "DO" Telegraph Office
at 16th Street, West Roanoke.

She is a Bunnell instrument and the base is marked WU and Sounder 1-A, and
the underside of the wood base is marked New York Relay Shop 1929.  She is
equipped with the 1893-style aluminum lever.  As built, she was a 50 Ohm
instrument, but I rewound her coils to make her a 120 Ohm instrument.  (It
just makes it easier for me to mix-and-match if all instruments in the
collection have a uniform resistance... Everything will work off the same
power supply, and I do not trust century-old enamel insulation on magnet
wire or the troublesome, brittle  century-old lead-out wires from the
coils.)  Because she has sentimental value to me, I did not refinish the
wood base, paint the coil covers or re-finish the brass.  Except for the
re-wound coils and some trunnion pivot lubrication, she is exactly as my
father handed her to me, all those years ago.

When I was a kid I  drove this little gal with a 6-volt railroad lantern
battery... the understanding of current and resistance were far in the
future.  Sure, the coils got hot, but 12 year old kids can't fathom why !

Right now she is singing on an operating telegraph circuit, clicking along
at 35 words per minutes on my desk, pumping out an article from an 1894
magazine which gives details of the first telegraph office in Harrisburg a
half-century earlier, in the year 1846.  That office was located on the
second floor of the railroad depot of the Harrisburg, Portsmouth, Mount Joy
& Lancaster RR, which, despite its grandiose name, ran only from Harrisburg
to Lancaster, 35 miles.  (In 1846, the railroad did not go west of
Harrisburg.)

The wooden resonator in which the instrument is here pictured was custom
built two years ago by a friend at church.  I showed him a photograph, he
made a pencil sketch, and the following week he handed me my new
resonator.  HA!

-- abram burnett
telegraphin'  turnips
.
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