Quote:
Originally Posted by Sparks
I believe Manchester Airport has its own exchange with numbers in the '0161 489' sequence.
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Not quite true. They had their own Private Automatic Branch eXchange at the airport. The 061/1616-489 was a block of DDI numbers. 'DDI' stands for 'Direct Dialling In' where the final digits of the telephone number were sent from the GPO/PO/BT exchange to the customer's PABX. Hence whilst the Airport PABX might have had say 3000 extensions, there would only be say 250 lines coming from the public exchange. The 'Mercury' public exchange with the 489 DDI number range on it was located in nearby
Finney Lane in Heald Green not too far from the airport
In 1972, there were three Strowger Director exchanges known as 'Mercury' with the codes 061-437, 061-493 and 061-497 - the 061-437 being the exchange that was originally 061-MER before sectorisation. There was also a fourth unit a Crossbar K3 Director exchange with the code 061-436. The 061-489 numbers were on the 061-437 exchange - the origin one in the 'Mercury' group. Now a group of System X and Y exchanges for a short while longer
