Philip Jamison wrote in Digest 980627:

> I've never seen a street organ in Holland turned by hand except for
> special occasions or in museums.  The standard power seems to be a
> small Honda generator which operates an electric motor.  This drives
> the large flywheel via a cloth belt.  This belt is flexible enough to
> conform to the curved flywheel.  I've never seen this type of belt for
> sale in the U.S., by the way.

I think this refers to the thread between me and Robbie.  Well, indeed
Robbie is right, if he says that turning by hand would be normal, but
this [now] seems to be "history".

In the time when there was no such motor, such a street organ was
normally run by three people, alternating with each other in turning
by hand.  Every 20 minutes they also moved (or better: _had_ to move)
their trailer by hand for some hundred meters.

I have seen more organs with battery-driven motors than with gener-
ators.  Some people use the little motor called "hond" (dog) which they
use to move their trailer without a car, also as power-supply for the
cranking of the organ.

 [ Hmmm ... "Hond-a", the dachshund from Japan!  :)  -- Robbie

Belts can be out of different materials.  The material used mostly in
former times was, of course, leather, but because you have to make it
a loop you had to connect the ends of the leather-string (mostly done
with metal), so the belt is always jumping when the ends run over the
motor pulley.  You mentioned the cloth ones.  Another material of today
is, of course, plastic.  Because you can weld the ends together, it runs
very quietly.

P.S.:  I love to turn our 48-key organ by hand!  My parents and I even
did so for entire days, years ago.  Only because of their age and
health, and the fact that it mostly isn't worth it to do so, we chose
to play more with the help of a motor, although this makes us dependent
on a power supply of 220V (which is why I want batteries now).

greetings by(e) InK -- Ingmar Krause
ERlanger drehORGEL-Trio, Familie Krause, erorgelt@erlangen.franken.de