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Telephone history: Telephone Service in Birmingham

Aiden, My copies of Telephony Vol 1 and 2 by J Atkinson were printed in 1950 and are mainly concerned with the telephone exchange and its associated equipment, uniselectors, 2-motion selectors, ringing machines etc... plus external PMBX's and PABX's not the telephones, the wiring diagrams for the various telephones and combinations appeared in a series of "N" diagrams in booklet form (like the one in your post), but in any case at that time (1950's) the standard telephone was the bakerlite telephone 332 and other 300 series. The 700 series, such as the 706 and Trimphone didn not come out until the 60's or later. I was a PABX engineer on Strowger electro-mechanical systems which I enjoyed, but when we changed to computerised electronic systems I was bored out of my mind a trained monkey could have done it, addmitted it was far more efficient from the customers point of view and required no maintenance so less engineers required. Eric
 
Thanks Eric. You are right - I thought the 706 was introduced much earlier than the actual 1959. Surprisingly the Trimphone was 1964 before the 746 in 1967. I live & learn. The types & N-Diagrams are given here https://www.telephonesuk.co.uk/phones_1960-80.htm

Thank you also for sharing the Atkinson Circuit Diagram of the Line Finder. The look is just as I remember it. There is something characteristic about the hand - an art, a definite calligraphy. The "Font" of the text I wish could be replicated here, but even something that could be readily identified about the form of resistors, the selectors, the wires and contacts. I'm not losing it am I? Does anyone else see it? I may need to hide in me Anorak

I agree that a couple of large floors of electro-mechanical Exchange (or a similar reception sized office switching room) is an awesome impact to all the senses which is not replicated by the fridge-sized black and blinking HAL that has replaced them....
 
Yes mate ... "I see it too!" :dft005: The font looks a bit like an "early computer" sans serif - can't identify it any closer than that. Actually if the diagram dates from 1950 that would make it "very early computer", perhaps even special-purpose plotter. The more I think about it, if it really is 1950 it was almost certainly drawn by a good old-fashioned HUMAN electronic draughtsman (now draughtsperson), font and all, as you surmised!

One thing I've observed (in my limited experience of these things): the early circuit diagrams definitely displayed a "calligraphic" style: often the draughter was proud enough of their work to sign or at least initial it. The very oldest circuit diagams have almost a "folksy" feel with non-standard "eccentricities"! Which makes me wonder, when was the first circuit diagram? I presume they started with the telegraph in a big way.
 
For the Norwegian-speaking BHF members, here's a picture of two telefonväxels with associated ledningschema. The circuit diagram, handsome in red and black, and decidedly stylish, dates from 1906 (I think).

From this page at the Projekt Runeberg website.
 
Thanks Thylacine.

I am sure the diagrams were drafted and that we will see a common style in those from the 1930s as well as those earlier. How this style and "font" was replicated over many different draughtspersons and design offices (though I would imagine all GPO which would impose a certain house style perhaps) I don't know and would be interesting to find out. Perhaps they used Letraset or perhaps more likely a specific Stencil set - bakelite Banksy's.

Part of this would be to find out when this style emerged. My guess would be 1920s but may be way off so we do need to find some examples. The artistic expressionism of the Norwegian ledningschema is interesting to the general point of art/calligraphy. The perpendicular arrangement of components and connection and the strong voice of blood Red is reminiscent of the Soviet Poster art of a little later date (example attached from 1922) and perhaps exhibits a Scandinavian/soviet style. It would be interesting to see other examples to prove this. I know Ericsson were around quite early...
 
Interesting ... I was wondering about stencils, but it looks more like early Letraset or equivalent. Love the 1922 Russian poster! :)

There are quite a few books on the telegraph and the telephone at archive.org, but it would take some systematic searching to sort the sheep from the goats. Here is a nice little 1889 book on the telephone, which contains lots of pictures and some classic early telephone diagrams. (No mention of Birmingham though. :()
 
I just remembered my first telephone. It was two empty baked beans tins connected by a long piece of string. We used to make these when I was a child. Believe it or not, they actually worked quite well as long as you: [1] connected the string to the dead centre of the bottom of the tin; and [2] kept the string taut. :D
 
The early book of the Telegraph and the Telephone are excellent finds, thanks.

The story of the laying of the international and transcontinental cables is most amazing and the thread is open to all telecom subjects even tins & string!

Lars Magnus Ericsson gets an honourable mention in the Telephone book so he was around from the start, well from 1876 as a telegraph equipment repair shop which became Telefonaktiebolaget L. M. Ericsson.

I like the picture of the Exchange - almost build your own Exchange from some 6'x4"! https://www.archive.org/stream/telephone00maiegoog#page/n263/mode/2up
 
Springfield Exchange is still there - at least the building is; I spotted it from our bus on the now fondly remembered Outer Circle bus tour a few weeks ago.
I worked there for a few months doing the 'exchange construction' part of my apprenticeship (Youth-in-Training, as it was called).
One of the things that is missing from this thread is any mention of the 'characters' who wiorked for Post Office Telephones at the time - so many great stories that would amuse most people. I hope to correct this later.
Ted
 
That's a very good point Ted, and look forward to reading of the characters. I know Youth-In-Training were also called Technician-In-Training for obvious reasons....
 
hi aiden ;
what was the number to the one around from the cricket ground
the one i am refering to is on the pershore rd just along from i think is an indoor cricket hall
it comes between edward rd and edgbaston rd years ago it was a very busy exchange
it had about thre rows of lady operating ;there must have been about 12 in a row or more
all chatting ,and giving info; out pulling in and out there boards not stop ;
there was a lady on each end of the rows ;looking up and down the rows waiting and loking for anybody whom as got problems with there lines
it was my first and only one time i have ever been in a telepone exchange looking with intrest at all there boards and seeing how they handled it and they spoke
and belive me it was trying to get intop fort knocks we had to used a pass word for a certain gentleman
and with id ,before we could past the first door ; this office is still standing today
i think there is some kind of an indian meeting hall next door know which as an insian sign on it but it is still there but i do not know if its operatioal today ; do you know ?.
best wish Astonian ;;;
 
Astonian, if you mean the 3-letter code, it was most likely EDG for Edgbaston but could be wrong as I never worked on that side of the City. Eric
 
Astonian, I imagine you are slightly mixed up with the location and that you are refering to the exchange in The Dogpool at Stirchley, just a short way from Pershore Road and not far from the County Ground. I think it was Selly Oak exchange. Here was also ENG control which handled subscribers calls for an engineer to fix faults: you dialled ENG for 'engineers' and the calls were dealt with by an engineer!
Every morning the exchanges in the area would test the circuits that went into the Selly Oak exchange and the test call would always be taken by one of operators. Sexy female voices enticed many an engineer from remote exchanges!
Ted
 
[A long way from Birmingham, but here's a personal memory on the subject of telephones.]

In the late 1960s and early 1970s I was an undergraduate at Macquarie University in northern Sydney, studying maths and physics. One summer vacation I got a job with the Postmaster General's Department (PMG) at the Network Performance Branch in Sydney. The PMG ran the Post Office and the telephone network in those days. Part of my duties was to operate a semi-automated system for making hundreds of random calls and recording the "call failure" statistics. I was treated by the manager as his personal research assistant, and he asked me to look into something called "distribution-free statistics" and how they could be applied to the work of the branch (don't ask - this was a long time ago!). I was allowed to go to my university library to do research, so I used to spend days at a time away from the office (which I seem to remember as being somewhat dusty and Dickensian). The young engineers used to resent my exalted status, and tried to load me down with mundane tasks like drawing scatter plots. But it was all great fun, and they were a lovely bunch of workmates. And the boss was satisfied with my research report (which I think I still have a copy of somewhere).
 
I think you are describing my favourite machine - you could set various parameters with switches on the front and it would make calls to known test tones think it was called something like Artificial Traffic Tester 1a or something like. If it failed (which it did on a surprising often basis) then you had to trace to call either at your Exchange or all the way through to the far end. Not sure the technicians in those far away places such as Tipton Tandem relished the tracing opportunity as much as me (but I was a Tech.In.Training....)
 
Interesting thread, Aidan.

I first had a phone installed in April 1974 (Lozells). Whilst I didn't have to wait as long as 'Miss Quinton', it was still 4 months and the installation cost was £44 - quite a sum, then. I had a trimphone which cost 35p extra per quarter. For the first few years we were on a 'party-line' which proved to be a real nuisance at times.
Regarding your post #15; in the late 1960s, my brother and I bought 2 of the 1930s models shown in picture 2 for 5 bob each (the intention being to use them as intercoms, though we never did). They were eventually discarded, I have no wish to know how much they would now be worth!
A neighbour of mine has only just got rid of the original telephone that was installed when his house was built in 1971, this being the 1960s-style from picture 3.
 
Thylacine and Aidan,
Generally, this piece of test kit was known as a 'sender'; it would perpetually generate test calls, as you say, and hold failed calls which could be traced and cleared. not only were 'Senders' in each exchange, they were in 'tandems' and the reports(known as 'Obs', short for observations) of the failures of the generated calls from Tandem would be sent to each exchange for investigation.
The Australian system was significantly, if not totally, British - when we were clinging on to the embers of 'Empire'. Exchanges in large towns and cities were dialled by using the first 3 letters of their name. This was known as the 'Director System'. The first three digits, which to the user were letters, were translated at each exchange within the system into the individual routing digits that would take the call to the required exchange. This was a clever idea because the routes calls from one exchange area to another took would be different because of the geographic locations. The Director System enabled the same dialling code to be used throughout the Director area.
Ted
 
Silver Fox, thanks for that explanation. It's a long time ago, and the memory's fairly hazy, so it's great to get more information.
 
Mohawk - Miss Quinton in post-#1 is something isn't she? I wonder who she was & where she is now - bet she didn't think would come back to haunt her 40 years later! Although I like most of the phone types the 1930s ones are I think the most elegant but the long-lasting and practical 746 has a certain honest dignity. I never did like the 706 though, although earlier than the 746 and similar shaping the 746 is more curvy and has had the designers fawn over it to make it perfect. Trimphone to me still spell modernity - which is why I was surprised that they came in before the 746 (so my quiz is wrong...). I think the dials used to glow-in-the-dark?

Thanks Silver Fox - at least it wasn't a flashback then! I always thought OBS referred to observation or rather hearing ie to do with quality of service (ie noisy line, crosstalk etc) rather than no dial tone/crossed line that the Artificial Traffic Sender would check for?
 
I thought OBS were the failures detected by Observation Operators and a formal company measure. Call Senders detections were classified as routine faults but not recorded against Quality of Service statistics?
 
Yes, Aiden, the Trimphone did have a luminous dial. That sort of thing came in handy during power cuts!

I couldn't help wondering where Miss Quinton is now and when and if she found 'Mr Right'.

Just as a general point, I went inside the Post Office Tower (as it was then known) in London (Maple St?) in 1969. There were displays of equipment through the ages in the windows visible from the street.
I think it was 5 shillings entry fee. I remember my ears 'popping' as the lift ascended. We were able to go onto the observation platform, part of which was glazed, with the rest being 'open' but with close railings. I believe public access ended in 1974 in the wake of IRA activity. I seem to recall hearing a couple of years ago that BT had got rid of their collection of old equipment. Very sad, and, in my view, typical corporate blockheadedness.

Regards, Mohawk.
 
Hi all
See you are talking about the 70's trim phone, and the luminous dial well this thing was the bane of my life for a short period I was on 24hr call for ATS commercial section and they paid for the phone etc, that BURR BURR sound and the luminous dial at all times of the night still haunts me,
paul
 
[I am really enjoying this thread! Thanks everyone. :)]

Getting back to my first phone: the "tin can telephone" is a bit more than a joke (but a joke nonetheless!). It gains entry to the eminent Wikipedia, and has a scientific basis. The picture (below left) is a classic circuit diagram of the trådtelefon in keeping with the Scandinavian theme (pace Erricsson!). The picture (below right) provides a contemporary view (but her string should be taut! ;)).
 
That is nice - particularly like the Tradtelefon. Would be interesting to try a point C, teleconference (do sine waves split into harmonics or just go out of phase?) Probably time to go to bed as I fear a slide-rule may be involved....
 
Good morning, Aidan (well it is down here! ;)). I think this is what you're after, though poor Olav can't hear because "hyssingen er slakk" (remarkable telecommunicators these Scandinavians! :D):
 
They certainly are & what surely a rare find. I can't remember much Swedish (and I'd think OBS would be difficult) but whatever the conference is about, I think is Vivi is shocked
 
Not hard to find, Aidan. I just Googled "trådtelefon" (but you have to paste in the funny "å" to get the real Nordic stuff! ;)).
 
I remember in the late 50's replacing subscribers black bakerlite "candlestick" telephones (100 series ?) and associated bell set 26 with the bakerlite 332. I would imagine they would fetch a fortune now. Another point about the older 'phone particularly the 300 series, you could replace practically every part whereas the modern variety you cannot, part of todays throw away culture. Eric
 
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