GPO Jack 95A - For the 2x 420 line cables...

[twocvbloke]

Seems I lucked out on this find, found it the other day, asked the seller whether it was a 95A (420) or 96A (505), and it was the 95A, so I can put that to use with my Mk28 phone...

After I strip the paint off of course, I hate seeing terminal blocks covered in paint, a quick attack with a screwdriver to take it off the wall and paint under it is all they needed to do...

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/150961654295

Probably won't arrive until after christmas, cos the post tends to be slow and overwhelmed at this time of year (you'd think by now they'd have worked out that christmas happens every year!!)...

And a pic:

[twocvbloke]

The jack arrived yesterday it seems, surprising given that the post office likes to say that things won't arrive for days at this time of year...

Been a tad busy with reorganising the mess in my bedroom aswell as rebuilding my desktop computer in a new case, so haven't really done anything with the socket yet, looks to be in reasonable condition though, just needs de-painting to make it look better...

And I haven't even gotten a set of pictures of it yet either...

[AE_Collector]

Do the two cover screws go right through the base to hold the works to the baseboard? If so, pretty easy to paint under rather than over it depending on how the wiring arrives at it though.

Terry

[twocvbloke]

Do the two cover screws go right through the base to hold the works to the baseboard?

No, there's two holes for screws inside the jack which attach it to the where it needs to be, so you have the cover screws holding the cover on, and two more inside to hold the whole unit to the wall...

Later versions had a cover where you squeezed the sides to pop the top off...

Anyway, finally got round to sorting this out, soaking in warm soapy water and cleaning the paint off with my old toothbrush (bit useless really as it's a bit soft!!) and a microfibre cloth, it's come up rather well actually, there's relatively little damage to the cover, just minor nicks & scratches, and scuffs where the plug was hitting before it actually made it into the socket...

Haven't made a start on wiring it up though, I've not decided whether to make up a mini-Plan 4 setup or just to wire it up as if it were hardwired to a BT52A, but with a plug inbetween...  

Anyway, pictures, first half of 'em:

[twocvbloke]

Second half of the pics:

[gpo706]

That cleaned up really nice, amazing what a bit soap and a toothbrush can do

[twocvbloke]

Yep, though it was mostly the microfibre cloth that did the work, like I say, my old toothbrush was a tad too soft to do much good, it just took mostly loose dirt off...

I've been looking through my collection of cables and wires to see if I have some solid core Cat 5 cable, mostly just to use for the GPO standard colours to keep everything somewhat in the right scheme once I get round to wiring things up...

[twocvbloke]

Oh I'm so slow sometimes, only just realised I didn't win the 2nd type of 95A I was watching on ebay (which Owain put me onto), I did bid, but I fell asleep long before the end of the auction, and only just remembered I'd bid on it, had a lot of ebay e-mails lately and just did a "Mark all as read" thing on them, missing the key ones for the 95A mk2...

This type has the cover which you squeeze the sides to pop the lid off, making it easier to access the connections without a screwdriver, and appears to be of a one-piece all-plastic construction, rather than having a removable black bakelite socket like mine does, making them cheaper to make I guess...

Ah well, a link to it and a pic for posterity:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/380539471452

[twocvbloke]

Got another one, this one is cream coloured, just perfect for the cream 420 cable I got...

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/221188259511

I adjusted the picture a bit though...

[twocvbloke]

And now I've stopped handling radioactive materials (the trimphone dial!!), I finally took a looksee at this, and it seems it's unused, cos the knockouts for cable entry are still in place, so I'm guessing it was rattling about in a drawer for a long time, and part of the 95A stamp wore off and made it look like 35A as the seller described it...

Still, here's some pictures to look at...