wrote in message
oups.com...



"Didn't 'Those In Charge Back On Land'(1), who decided
to change to 100 wpm, run some off-air, lab tests on the
various types of teleprinters in use by the fleet before the
changeover, to see how the machines would hold up?"

The entire fleet was outfitted with AN/UGC-20 and AN/UGC-25 plus a scattering of
AN/UGC-6 teleprinters. These are just different configurations of what
civilians would call a "Model 28". The were designed to run at 45.5, 55, and 75
baud (60, 75, and 100 WPM) depending on the gearset installed. Properly
maintained and adjusted, they were reliable workhorses at any designed speed.

But for years they'd been plodding along at 45.5-baud in the fleet and never
been exercised at the higher speed rates. Ships didn't carry gearsets for
speeds above 45.5, and even if they did, changing out the gears was not a
trivial task, and besides, there were no higher speed signals available to test
at those higher speed.

But maintenance was uneven, as was the skill level of the repairman. Many ships
carried no trained repairman, and the machines only got professional attention
during shipyard or tender availability periods (stand-downs for upkeep).

These machines have a host of springs/clutches/latches/pivots/adjustments which
each of course have design tolerances. Now at 45.5-baud a machine can tolerate
some level of "out of tolerance" parts and adjustments and still operate quite
satisfactorily. But jump (there's that word again) to 75 baud and all that
tolerance creep would result in an inoperative machine, either printing garbage
or actually physically failing as out of tolerance parts literally "ran into
each other", clutches froze, bearing seized, etc.

I know what FOX is and I assume CASREPT is a request for a repeat.

CASREPT is "Casualty Report" --- a dreaded notice up the operational chain of
command that your ship has some diminished capability to perform. Skippers
don't like to send CASREPTs! Good sailors do some heroic things to protect
their Skippers from such, including cumshawing a helicopter ride in the middle
of the night to carry a sick AN/UGC-20 to the repair shop on a nearby Heavy.
Almost as much as a good stewburner (cook) a Captain would do almost anything to
get (and keep) a good teletype repairman.

73, de Hans, K0HB