James May: The Reassembler
Discussion
When I joined British Telecom in the 80's, the dial type phones were being phased out and replaced with push button pstn ones. We were still obliged to maintain them as they were rented although it was much easier to replace than to repair. I recovered many hundreds of 706's, 746,s and trim phones and all were skipped .
I remember one interesting job where I went to a fault for Lord David Owen who lived in a converted wharf warehouse building in Wapping . They had a multiple phone layout all still hard wired and the butler showed me the phone that had a problem with the handset. By that time the 746 was obsolete so we did not have any spares in the stores. I offered to convert it to pstn and replaced it with a Viscount but it was made very clear to me that Lady Owen would not accept this and I would have to repair the orginal. Under no circumstances would any other phone be acceptable as she liked the sound of the bell ring. The only solution was to raid the skips at all the local stores to find as many recovered phones as possible and put them in a sack to be left there and used as spares for years to come.
Can you image that happening now?
I remember one interesting job where I went to a fault for Lord David Owen who lived in a converted wharf warehouse building in Wapping . They had a multiple phone layout all still hard wired and the butler showed me the phone that had a problem with the handset. By that time the 746 was obsolete so we did not have any spares in the stores. I offered to convert it to pstn and replaced it with a Viscount but it was made very clear to me that Lady Owen would not accept this and I would have to repair the orginal. Under no circumstances would any other phone be acceptable as she liked the sound of the bell ring. The only solution was to raid the skips at all the local stores to find as many recovered phones as possible and put them in a sack to be left there and used as spares for years to come.
Can you image that happening now?
Just watched the first episode and enjoyed it partly due to the complete lack of intrusive background music that seems to dominate so many programmes these days
The mumps comment in the second episode had me chuckling. May. can be very amusing at times.
The mumps comment in the second episode had me chuckling. May. can be very amusing at times.
Edited by Smollet on Saturday 9th April 10:39
2172cc said:
When I joined British Telecom in the 80's, the dial type phones were being phased out and replaced with push button pstn ones. We were still obliged to maintain them as they were rented although it was much easier to replace than to repair. I recovered many hundreds of 706's, 746,s and trim phones and all were skipped .
I remember one interesting job where I went to a fault for Lord David Owen who lived in a converted wharf warehouse building in Wapping . They had a multiple phone layout all still hard wired and the butler showed me the phone that had a problem with the handset. By that time the 746 was obsolete so we did not have any spares in the stores. I offered to convert it to pstn and replaced it with a Viscount but it was made very clear to me that Lady Owen would not accept this and I would have to repair the orginal. Under no circumstances would any other phone be acceptable as she liked the sound of the bell ring. The only solution was to raid the skips at all the local stores to find as many recovered phones as possible and put them in a sack to be left there and used as spares for years to come.
Can you image that happening now?
Nice memories.I remember one interesting job where I went to a fault for Lord David Owen who lived in a converted wharf warehouse building in Wapping . They had a multiple phone layout all still hard wired and the butler showed me the phone that had a problem with the handset. By that time the 746 was obsolete so we did not have any spares in the stores. I offered to convert it to pstn and replaced it with a Viscount but it was made very clear to me that Lady Owen would not accept this and I would have to repair the orginal. Under no circumstances would any other phone be acceptable as she liked the sound of the bell ring. The only solution was to raid the skips at all the local stores to find as many recovered phones as possible and put them in a sack to be left there and used as spares for years to come.
Can you image that happening now?
Did you work on the push button version that WASNT DTMF ?
I remember the viscount as it was the phone we had in the 2nd house we bought.
techiedave said:
2172cc said:
When I joined British Telecom in the 80's, the dial type phones were being phased out and replaced with push button pstn ones. We were still obliged to maintain them as they were rented although it was much easier to replace than to repair. I recovered many hundreds of 706's, 746,s and trim phones and all were skipped .
I remember one interesting job where I went to a fault for Lord David Owen who lived in a converted wharf warehouse building in Wapping . They had a multiple phone layout all still hard wired and the butler showed me the phone that had a problem with the handset. By that time the 746 was obsolete so we did not have any spares in the stores. I offered to convert it to pstn and replaced it with a Viscount but it was made very clear to me that Lady Owen would not accept this and I would have to repair the orginal. Under no circumstances would any other phone be acceptable as she liked the sound of the bell ring. The only solution was to raid the skips at all the local stores to find as many recovered phones as possible and put them in a sack to be left there and used as spares for years to come.
Can you image that happening now?
Nice memories.I remember one interesting job where I went to a fault for Lord David Owen who lived in a converted wharf warehouse building in Wapping . They had a multiple phone layout all still hard wired and the butler showed me the phone that had a problem with the handset. By that time the 746 was obsolete so we did not have any spares in the stores. I offered to convert it to pstn and replaced it with a Viscount but it was made very clear to me that Lady Owen would not accept this and I would have to repair the orginal. Under no circumstances would any other phone be acceptable as she liked the sound of the bell ring. The only solution was to raid the skips at all the local stores to find as many recovered phones as possible and put them in a sack to be left there and used as spares for years to come.
Can you image that happening now?
Did you work on the push button version that WASNT DTMF ?
I remember the viscount as it was the phone we had in the 2nd house we bought.
If you remember the trim phones from the 70's , they came at first with a dial and then buttons .These are extremely rare now as we were instructed to remove all them from service as it was discovered that the glow in the dark dials were slightly radio active!
Great memories indeed.
2172cc said:
I did but they weren't that common. By that time the big push was to replace all the old hard wired phones with plug in sockets. Used to love them jobs , we called them ' dis con - re con'...
If you remember the trim phones from the 70's , they came at first with a dial and then buttons .These are extremely rare now as we were instructed to remove all them from service as it was discovered that the glow in the dark dials were slightly radio active!
Great memories indeed.
Trimphones, gaah! We moved to a house that had a trimphone; cleverly designed to be so lightweight thatIf you remember the trim phones from the 70's , they came at first with a dial and then buttons .These are extremely rare now as we were instructed to remove all them from service as it was discovered that the glow in the dark dials were slightly radio active!
Great memories indeed.
(1) when you answered it the handset cord would flip it upside down and it would land on the switch, ending the call.
(2) you had to tuck the handset under your chin so you had a free hand to hold down the base while you dialled the number.
Halmyre said:
Trimphones, gaah! We moved to a house that had a trimphone; cleverly designed to be so lightweight that
(1) when you answered it the handset cord would flip it upside down and it would land on the switch, ending the call.
(2) you had to tuck the handset under your chin so you had a free hand to hold down the base while you dialled the number.
Hideous ringtone too.(1) when you answered it the handset cord would flip it upside down and it would land on the switch, ending the call.
(2) you had to tuck the handset under your chin so you had a free hand to hold down the base while you dialled the number.
GetCarter said:
..and when I were a lad, the first three dials we dialed were letters not numbers.
My first number was WORdsworth 2289 (907- 2289). Hence the letters on the dial. We were apparently not bright enough to remember 7 numbers, so had to have poets, artists etc.
My childhood mates were all on BYRon or SHElly
Was that north London? My gran was WOR, Kenton.My first number was WORdsworth 2289 (907- 2289). Hence the letters on the dial. We were apparently not bright enough to remember 7 numbers, so had to have poets, artists etc.
My childhood mates were all on BYRon or SHElly
Edited by GetCarter on Friday 8th April 18:51
GetCarter said:
Halmyre said:
Trimphones, gaah! We moved to a house that had a trimphone; cleverly designed to be so lightweight that
(1) when you answered it the handset cord would flip it upside down and it would land on the switch, ending the call.
(2) you had to tuck the handset under your chin so you had a free hand to hold down the base while you dialled the number.
Hideous ringtone too.(1) when you answered it the handset cord would flip it upside down and it would land on the switch, ending the call.
(2) you had to tuck the handset under your chin so you had a free hand to hold down the base while you dialled the number.
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