Martin Underwood wrote:
snip
At least in the UK we got rid of local codes for neighbouring
exchanges: these varied from one place to another - so you might
precede a person's number with a 9 from exchange A to B but precede
it with 61 from exchange C to B. I worked out fairly early on that it
was possible to dial the STD code from *any* exchange, even when a
local code existed. I've heard it said that before local codes were
abolished it was possible to go from one end of the country to the
other in hops by dialling each local code in turn - and that the
resulting trunk call was then charged at the local rate ;-)

That was possible, but as you used local links all the way many repeaters
(amplifiers) were bypassed which resulted in a very quiet call with lots of
background noise.


--
Cheers for now,

John from Harrow, Middx

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"John Shelley" wrote in message
...
Martin Underwood wrote:
snip
At least in the UK we got rid of local codes for neighbouring
exchanges: these varied from one place to another - so you might
precede a person's number with a 9 from exchange A to B but precede
it with 61 from exchange C to B. I worked out fairly early on that it
was possible to dial the STD code from *any* exchange, even when a
local code existed. I've heard it said that before local codes were
abolished it was possible to go from one end of the country to the
other in hops by dialling each local code in turn - and that the
resulting trunk call was then charged at the local rate ;-)

That was possible, but as you used local links all the way many repeaters
(amplifiers) were bypassed which resulted in a very quiet call with lots
of
background noise.

Ah, those were the days:

- Telephones with dials that took forever to return so you could dial the
next number - a real pain when you had to keep re-dialling because the
number was engaged.

- A loooooooooong delay after dialling the last digit before you got a
ringing tone, as the relays chugged away

- The brrrrrr dialling tone that was often so faint that you didn't know if
you'd "got a line" - at least the modern 350 Hz + 450 Hz dialling tone is
audible.

- Button A / Button B or pay-on-answer callboxes: remember those wretched
pips

- Recorded announcements made by women with cold, unwelcoming, cut-glass,
plummy accents who sounded as if they were speaking from the moon. They
probably came from the same place that trained the dragonesses in my local
library!


At least things are better these days.

One thing I wish they'd sort out: if someone calls you and they fail to put
their receiver back, the line remains connected for ages, even after you've
put your phone back, blocking you from making an outgoing call. When my
grandma had a stroke a few years ago, she phoned me for help but forgot to
put her phone back. I eventually had to go next door to phone for an
ambulance because the line wouldn't disconnect. Surely it's not difficult to
enginner things so *either* handset being replaced drops the line - or else
to shorten the delay to just a few seconds if it's needed to avoid the line
dropping if you accidentally blip the handset switch.

In message ,
Martin Underwood writes
Button A / Button B or pay-on-answer callboxes: remember those
wretched pips
I remember button A/B phones but not with pips, if I recall they came
with the slightly more modern type where when the call was answered you
then got the pips to insert the money.
--
Clive.

"Clive Coleman" wrote in message
...
In message , Martin
Underwood writes
Button A / Button B or pay-on-answer callboxes: remember those wretched
pips
I remember button A/B phones but not with pips, if I recall they came with
the slightly more modern type where when the call was answered you then
got the pips to insert the money.

Yes, you're probably right. Button A/B phones had been phased out by the
time I remember using a callbox. I only saw one in a hotel that we stayed in
when I was little (about 1970) - I presume the GPO hadn't got round to
replacing it with a "pips" phone.

Button A/B were pre-payment (like modern phoneboxes), weren't they - hence
button B to return your coin if there weas no answer. Nowadays no buttons
are needed because the coin is automatically consumed if the call is
answered (equivalent to pressing A) and automatically returned (if not used)
when the handset is replaced (equivalent to pressing B). I'm not sure why
this functionality wasn't included in old callboxes: surely it wasn't
difficult even in valve-amplifier and relay days.

In message , at
14:57:34 on Sat, 1 Jan 2005, Martin Underwood remarked:
Nowadays no buttons
are needed because the coin is automatically consumed if the call is
answered (equivalent to pressing A) and automatically returned (if not used)
when the handset is replaced (equivalent to pressing B). I'm not sure why
this functionality wasn't included in old callboxes: surely it wasn't
difficult even in valve-amplifier and relay days.

Almost certainly because the button A/B callboxes weren't powered. All
the work was done by pressing the buttons very hard. If it was necessary
to count coins, fore example on a long distance call, the operator (who
would be needed pre-STD) would literally listen-in and count while the
line was interrupted every time you put a coin in. When that money as
used up the operator would have to come back to you.
--
Roland Perry

On Sun, 2 Jan 2005 08:17:13 +0000, Roland Perry
wrote:

In message , at
14:57:34 on Sat, 1 Jan 2005, Martin Underwood remarked:
Nowadays no buttons
are needed because the coin is automatically consumed if the call is
answered (equivalent to pressing A) and automatically returned (if not used)
when the handset is replaced (equivalent to pressing B). I'm not sure why
this functionality wasn't included in old callboxes: surely it wasn't
difficult even in valve-amplifier and relay days.

Almost certainly because the button A/B callboxes weren't powered. All
the work was done by pressing the buttons very hard.

That explains a lot. My experience of A/B boxes is limited: they were
on their way out in London at least by the time that I was old enough
to use phone boxes, though I came across them in significant numbers
in Ireland as late as 1985, and at least one in a remote spot in the
north of Scotland even later than that. But I always had the sense of
buttons that were extremely heavy to use and some chunky thumb-powered
mechanisms within the box.

Incidentally http://www.bt.com/archives/history/19241931.htm and
scroll down to 1925 reveals that the A/B button system was introduced
in 1935 and the very last ones in the UK weren't discontinued until
1992

Martin

"Martin Rich" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 2 Jan 2005 08:17:13 +0000, Roland Perry
wrote:

In message , at
14:57:34 on Sat, 1 Jan 2005, Martin Underwood remarked:
Nowadays no buttons
are needed because the coin is automatically consumed if the call is
answered (equivalent to pressing A) and automatically returned (if not
used)
when the handset is replaced (equivalent to pressing B). I'm not sure why
this functionality wasn't included in old callboxes: surely it wasn't
difficult even in valve-amplifier and relay days.

Almost certainly because the button A/B callboxes weren't powered. All
the work was done by pressing the buttons very hard.

That explains a lot. My experience of A/B boxes is limited: they were
on their way out in London at least by the time that I was old enough
to use phone boxes, though I came across them in significant numbers
in Ireland as late as 1985, and at least one in a remote spot in the
north of Scotland even later than that. But I always had the sense of
buttons that were extremely heavy to use and some chunky thumb-powered
mechanisms within the box.

Incidentally http://www.bt.com/archives/history/19241931.htm and
scroll down to 1925 reveals that the A/B button system was introduced
in 1935 and the very last ones in the UK weren't discontinued until
1992

Gosh, I hadn't realised that Button A/B phones lasted as long as 1992 in
some places - that's about the time that the post-payment "pips" phones were
starting to be replaced with modern pre-payment phones. Life goes
full-circle!

Surely all phones have always had a very ready source of power: the standing
voltage on the phone line. Couldn't that have been used to power coin-return
etc in Button A/B phones? Or was it just that there was enough current
available?

Martin Underwood wrote to uk.transport.london on Sat, 1 Jan 2005:

- Button A / Button B or pay-on-answer callboxes: remember those wretched
pips

The first call we received after we'd gone to STD (Subscriber Trunk
Dialling - before then, we'd had no dialling of any kind) was from a
phone-box, and my mother was most upset at the thought of "That horrid
noise" whenever the phone rang.....

But do you remember "the pips" that would warn you when you'd been
talking for three minutes on a long-distance call (trunk call, they were
called), since such calls were extremely expensive and charged in
3-minute units. Few people wanted to prolong a call once they'd heard
"the pips".
--
"Mrs Redboots"
http://www.amsmyth.demon.co.uk/
Website updated 18 December 2004

"Mrs Redboots" wrote in message
...

But do you remember "the pips" that would warn you when you'd been
talking for three minutes on a long-distance call

"...and the operator says '30 cents more for the next three minutes'..."
(Dr. Hook)

Ian

"Ian F." wrote in message
...
"Mrs Redboots" wrote in message
...

But do you remember "the pips" that would warn you when you'd been
talking for three minutes on a long-distance call

"...and the operator says '30 cents more for the next three minutes'..."
(Dr. Hook)

Wasn't it '40 [not 30] cents more for the next [long pause] three [long
pause] minutes'? ;-) I never understood the significance of those pauses.