Martin Underwood ) gurgled happily, sounding much like
they were saying :

Any idea why the whole country didn't start the new numberplate format
on 1 Jan 1963. To have only some regions adopt the new scheme - and
not all of those starting on the same date - sounds like a ****-up and
brewery situation!

Don't forget that until the early 70s, registrations were all issued by
local authorities, rather than a centralised authority. They just went on
in their own sweet way doing their own sweet little thing...

Another question: what are the rules about white-on-black plates
versus black-on-white/yellow plates. I thought it became a legal
requirement to have black-on-white/yellow round about H or J, but I
occasionally see newer cars (though still with the year letter as a
*suffix*) with old-style white-on-black plates.

Legally, white-on-black is only allowed on cars first registered pre
1/1/73.

London buses are the worst offenders of the lot...

In message ,
Martin Underwood writes

I've heard that the failure of line-drop was a way that burglars prevented a
house's occupants from dialling 999 - they'd ring a number and then leave
their phone off-hook to keep the line open while they burgled the house.
Less reliable nowadays since many people have mobiles which could be used as
a fall-back in this case.

This was used for the old 999 diallers, and more recently digital
communicators hooked to the house line.

These days, anyone who needs any sort of security either has a dedicated
ICB line or Redcare.
--
Steve Fitzgerald has now left the building.
You will find him in London's Docklands, E16, UK
(please use the reply to address for email)

In message , Clive D. W. Feather
writes
NP also applies to mobiles, but the mechanisms aren't necessarily the
same.
Years ago the base band from your phone was multiplexed in a group using
FDM. Then these were multiplexed into larger groupings called
supergroups. Is the system still the same? If so how does it get
converted to the TDM of mobiles? Another question, having ADSL coming
down the same line as my normal telephone, I gather it would need to be
on a carrier of some sort or other, DSB,VSB,SSB with or without the
possibility of suppressed carrier etc. anyone out there able to give me
a clue? And what would the frequencies of the carrier be?
--
Clive.

"Clive D. W. Feather" wrote in message
...

Wasn't it I for NI, Z for the Republic, S for Scotland, and W for Wales?
Though I don't recall who got hybrids like SI or IZ.

All the Zx registrations were in the Republic. The Ix registrations are a
mixture, as are the xI and xZ combinations.

SI was Clackmannanshire. There was no IS, and IZ was County Mayo.

W itself was Sheffield, as were WA, WB, WE and WJ. The Welsh registrations
had no particular allocations. Glamorgan was L, then NY and TG.

Scotland had some extra registrations, like G, GA etc. for Glasgow, and AG
for Ayrshire, VA and VD for Lanarkshire, YJ for Dundee, RG for Aberdeen,
etc.

Go to http://www.terry.harper.btinternet.co.uk/carreg.htm for the full 1966
list. If you find any misprints resulting from the scanning in, please let
me know. I've just corrected a few as a result of looking for these
examples.
--
Terry Harper, Web Co-ordinator, The Omnibus Society
75th Anniversary 2004, see http://www.omnibussoc.org/75th.htm
E-mail:
URL: http://www.terry.harper.btinternet.co.uk/

Clive D. W. Feather wrote:
In article ,
Colin McKenzie writes
E onwards ran from Aug-Jul
making D a short "year"?
More or less, but E was the short year, and the changeover in 67.

Wasn't there a later change to October, then to September?

The S prefix ran from August 1998 to February 1999. Thereafter, prefix
letters T,V,W,X and Y were each valid for 6 months starting on 1st March
or 1st September. These are also the starting dates for the date numbers
in the new format used since September 2001.
--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)

On Sun, 02 Jan 2005 14:15:37 GMT, John Youles mines.a.pint@localhost
wrote:
In message on Sun, 02 Jan 2005
13:22:40 +0000 in uk.transport.london, (Richard)
tapped out on the keyboard:

Perhaps Ofcom could do some advertising that actually works this time,
when London starts to get 3xxx xxxx numbers.

Why ? The area code will not have changed, all that will be happening is that a
new range of local numbers will come into existence. You already have to dial
the last eight digits anyway.

So that people get it right this time! IMO as soon as it was obvious
that enough people were confused about the change, the ads, website
and bill inserts should have been changed to explain why the format
that was becoming common was *wrong*. That so many people are still
confused shows that the original publicity could have been better,
doesn't it?

Richard.

In message on Tue, 04 Jan 2005
01:17:59 +0000 in uk.transport.london, (Richard)
tapped out on the keyboard:

On Sun, 02 Jan 2005 14:15:37 GMT, John Youles mines.a.pint@localhost
wrote:
In message on Sun, 02 Jan 2005
13:22:40 +0000 in uk.transport.london, (Richard)
tapped out on the keyboard:

Perhaps Ofcom could do some advertising that actually works this time,
when London starts to get 3xxx xxxx numbers.

Why ? The area code will not have changed, all that will be happening is that a
new range of local numbers will come into existence. You already have to dial
the last eight digits anyway.

So that people get it right this time! IMO as soon as it was obvious
that enough people were confused about the change, the ads, website
and bill inserts should have been changed to explain why the format
that was becoming common was *wrong*. That so many people are still
confused shows that the original publicity could have been better,
doesn't it?

Richard.

Ofcom don't advertise when any other area gets a new range of local numbers, why
should they for London ? Numbers of the format (020) 7xxx xxxx and (020) 8xxx
xxxx are not affected by the introduction of (020) 3xxx xxxx unlike the earlier
changes which affected the area code and / or existing local numbers.

--
John Youles Norwich England UK
j dot y.o.u.l.e.s at n.t.l.w.o.r.l.d dot c.o.m

In article , Clive Coleman
writes
Years ago the base band from your phone was multiplexed in a group
using FDM. Then these were multiplexed into larger groupings called
supergroups. Is the system still the same?

No.

The line card in the concentrator will digitise the phone signal (8000
samples per second using 8 bit encoding (mu-law IIRC)). All traffic
within the network uses these digitised streams. This is the source of
the 64k theoretical limit for modems.

An E1 is 2048000 bits per second. It's split into 64000 frames per
second, each 32 bits long. Bit 0 is used for clocking, bit 16 for
signalling, and the other 30 bits are the 30 voice channels on the
carrier. E1s are then multiplexed up into larger groups, but again at
the octet level.

The basic switching device is a piece of RAM. Say you've got 32 E1s
coming in (so 960 voice channels plus 64 signalling bits) on a link.
Switching basically involves re-ordering these bits between the input
and output. You read the 1024 bits in order into a RAM, then read them
out in the appropriate order.

[There are two 64000 bps data streams, one for each direction of the
call. They get handled separately though, of course, in
synchronisation.]

Note that ISDN simply involves doing the digitising at the customer
premises (or using data directly). An ISDN-2 multiplexes two channels, a
16000 bps D channel, and some framing bits into a (IIRC) 160kbs signal.
The line card then splits it back out.

Another question, having ADSL coming down the same line as my normal
telephone, I gather it would need to be on a carrier of some sort or
other, DSB,VSB,SSB with or without the possibility of suppressed
carrier etc. anyone out there able to give me a clue? And what would
the frequencies of the carrier be?

Beyond my knowledge base, I'm afraid. I know the spectrum is divided up
in the order phone, spacer, uplink, downlink, and there are complex
power limit curves for the different types of ADSL equipment.

--
Clive D.W. Feather | Home:
Tel: +44 20 8495 6138 (work) | Web: http://www.davros.org
Fax: +44 870 051 9937 | Work:
Please reply to the Reply-To address, which is:

On Tue, 04 Jan 2005 08:49:10 GMT, John Youles mines.a.pint@localhost
wrote:
Ofcom don't advertise when any other area gets a new range of local numbers, why
should they for London ?

I'm only suggesting it because of the mess that we are in since the
code change. And then not necessarily only in London, 029 seems just
as misunderstood. Everywhere else in the country seems at peace with
their numbers (except parts of Reading)...

Numbers of the format (020) 7xxx xxxx and (020) 8xxx
xxxx are not affected by the introduction of (020) 3xxx xxxx unlike the earlier
changes which affected the area code and / or existing local numbers.

Yes, I know, my point is that with the existing misunderstanding of
the London code, the new numbers will be perceived as having a new
code and that needs to be clarified otherwise we'll be moaning about
seeing 0203.

Richard.

On Mon, 3 Jan 2005 08:41:20 +0000, "Clive D. W. Feather"
wrote:

In article ,
Martin Underwood writes
By the way, how did changing from 0171 xxx yyyy or 0181 xxx yyyy to 020 7xxx
yyyy or 020 8xxx yyyy help alleviate the shortage of available numbers in
London? It didn't increase the number of available phone numbers

Actually, it did: it made the 70xx, 71xx, 80xx, and 81xx blocks
available.


Of course the phone number in the subject line is within the 70
blocks.

So is my office phone number. This arose because City University
already had phone numbers in two separate ranges, 7477 and 7505, and
would I believe have needed to find space in a third range for any
expansion in the number of separate phone numbers within the
university. So instead all the existing numbers were switched to the
7040 range (with a transitional period during which both old and new
numbers worked)

I'm fairly certain that I haven't seen any 80 or 81 numbers in use,
which fits with the remark elsewhere in the thread that the former
0171 range was the one approaching capacity.

Martin