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Vintage Telephony and Telecomms Vintage Telephones, Telephony and Telecomms Equipment |
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6th Jun 2020, 11:29 pm | #21 | |
Triode
Join Date: Mar 2020
Location: Barnsley, South Yorkshire, UK.
Posts: 42
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Re: Video of last manual exchange in London
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7th Jun 2020, 1:47 pm | #22 | |
Heptode
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: Flintshire, UK.
Posts: 707
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Re: Video of last manual exchange in London
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And you still couldn't dial all the UK telephones in the UK until 1990! I once gave a talk on 'Preserving Strowger' to the IBTE Section at Whittington House, Oswestry in the mid 1990's and one of the managers present tod me all about the hassle BT had had from rival companies who were able to claim 'BT was not fully automatic yet but we are'! BT went to great lengths to 'end the era' of manual telephones in 1990! |
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7th Jun 2020, 7:04 pm | #23 |
Heptode
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: Flintshire, UK.
Posts: 707
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Re: Video of last manual exchange in London
See attached from BT's 1989 North of Scotland Telephone Directory of a number it still wasn't able to dial. It was in a croft on the Isle of Harris with no road access until 1990. Only accessible by a five mile footpath over the hills. It was used as an 'attended call office' where you made the call, then the attendant collected the money from you once advised of the cost by the operator!.
There is an excerpt from a BBC programme 'The Secret Life of Telephone Numbers' (of about 2005) which is about the number which can be heard by dialling 01859 (Harris) 598 001 ( Rheinigidale 1 ) - a 'normal geographic number' so should be in your 'free calls' package. |
9th Jun 2020, 10:38 pm | #24 | |
Triode
Join Date: Mar 2020
Location: Barnsley, South Yorkshire, UK.
Posts: 42
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Re: Video of last manual exchange in London
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It was BT themselves who said that STD was completed in 1979, the vast majority of UK telephones were diallable from each other by then. |
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10th Jun 2020, 2:29 pm | #25 |
Heptode
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: Flintshire, UK.
Posts: 707
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Re: Video of last manual exchange in London
It is the Falklands Islands who were magneto working until after the Falklands War in the early 1980's.
Don't believe all you hear from BT. Rheinigidale 1 was still a manual phone as shown by the 1989 BT Telephone Directory. When BT's rivals found out about it in the late 1980's they apparently used it to say 'we are all digital but BT aren't yet'! Hence BT's great effort to replace the manual telephone with a 'dialable one. |
15th Jul 2020, 2:11 pm | #26 |
Tetrode
Join Date: Jan 2020
Location: Canterbury, Kent, UK.
Posts: 71
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Re: Video of last manual exchange in London
As a matter of interest, I lived less than a mile away from that exchange and visited it as a child on two or three occasions. I vaguely remember the occasion of the switchover as being a time of some trepidation as to whether everything would go right or not!
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16th Jul 2020, 10:40 am | #27 |
Dekatron
Join Date: Jul 2008
Location: Charmouth, Dorset, UK.
Posts: 3,601
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Re: Video of last manual exchange in London
They had a big site at Foots cray in Kent when I was in my youth. I had to go there with under guarantee KB TVs on occasion. The Brimar valve works was also situated there.
Peter |