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Two-tone Green GPO 746...

Started by twocvbloke, December 17, 2011, 12:30:26 AM

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twocvbloke

Thought I'd get a couple of pics of this one too, it's probably my most amusing of my phones (at least to me it is!!), when I got it, I was looking about in the market hall in Burnley (Lancashire, UK for those wondering!!), I found one appliance I truly wanted, a Hotpoint Supermatic 9404 Twin Tub, perfect condition, but £65, too much for my pocket at the time as we were in the process of moving house, then I glanced up at a shelf, and saw the handset of a GPO phone...  :o

So as I couldn't afford the twintub, I decided to go investigate the phone, and hey presto, it was a Two-Tone Green 746, and it was the first version of the 746 with the smooth handset cradle (see pic.2, most were replaced with a stepped version as the smooth one caused the handset to occasionally not sit properly and thus not press the hookswitch buttons correctly and close the line), they wanted £20 or it, a bit much for it's condition I thought, but the dial was turning perfectly, and everything but the line cord was there, so I bought it... :)

On the way home, sitting waiting for the train, I had a close look at it, and noticed the dial label (see pic.3), the phone had only been used as a blummin' kid's toy!!! :o

So, I got home, and just went to town on stripping that thing down and testing everything, and to my surprise, despite being used as a play toy by kids, the phone still worked fine, and I flipped the dial label (see pic.4) to find the label was infact the last one fitted by a GPO/BT engineer (won't be the original the phone got back in the 70's when it was built, the numbers were shorter back then!!!), and I think it's still an active number, so I've masked two of the digits typed on the label... :)

Anyway, a couple of weeks later, and 100 miles away, I finally got the kit to convert it to modern standards, with a brand new green line cord, and got it all cleaned up and converted, just needs to be fed with an active phoneline which we're still waiting for to be connected (it was sort-of connected when we moved here, but I couldn't dial out, apart from 17070 which is the BT test facility), though using one of my Linesman phones, it works fine as it is, so I'm quite happy with it, and I like the colour, and after being used as a kids toy no less, a testament to the simplistic and rugged GPO design... ;D

Owain

According to this page  it's a Liverpool Gateacre exchange number.

Maybe this was the exchange.

In 1941 the Liverpool Director Area was inaugurated with the opening of Advance Exchange and All Figure Numbering (AFN) was introduced in 1966 so the number could well be the original

twocvbloke

I never really thought that Liverpool had numbers like that as far back as the 60's, learn something new every day...  :D

I stuck the full number (adding the missing "1") into google, and it does appear to be an active number, so someone somewhere in Liverpool still uses the number that this GPO phone came with (or was installed on their line), but then it could just be in the BT recycled numbers list being used over and over again as people leave and join them... ???

You know, I forgot to post the stamp on the base, so here's another pic below...  ;D

GG



GPO 706 and 746 are world-class iconic designs for their era, right next to WE 500.  I have a bunch of 'em around here, including a red 746 on the emergency line next to my bed (and a 232 with integral bellset on my home office extension!). 

Yet for some odd reason, all the 7xx phones have really high sidetone behind a Panasonic PBX, and flipping the regulator board on 706s doesn't change that.  Any hints for reducing sidetone on those without losing transmit or receive performance?  I suspect what's up is the regulator sees 24 volts from the PBX and "thinks" the phone is on a long CO line so it goes to maximum transmit gain.  But I haven't figured out how to tweak the extension line impedance to deal with this.

In case anyone's wondering what a "twin tub" is: it's a clothes washer with a separate agitate compartment and spin compartment.  These are still made (Danby, available in the US) and I have one.  Wash in the agitate compartment, spin in the spinner, rinse in the agitate compartment, spin in the spinner again, and you're done.  You have to move the clothes back & forth between the two compartments, but it's faster than a conventional washer, uses less power, uses less water if you know a few tricks (such as leaving the rinse water from the first load in the agitate compartment to wash the second load), and has no complicated sequencer or logic board that can get out of order.  Usually the spinners on these are high-speed so the clothes come out practically dry, which reduces your power consumption for the clothes dryer by about half (or hang 'em on an indoor clothes line overnight, which is what I do).   Another example of oldschool tech that can work as well as or better than the latest new stuff. 


twocvbloke

I've only got two 746 phones, I did have three up until recently, I gave my Ivory 1981 GEC one away as I didn't like it's tone (it had one brass bell and one steel bell, the steel one has a higher note to it), that and I got another Ivory one, but from '72 I think (really need to look at it again!!), that one has a dodgy dial (initially was a slow and dry dial), sometimes it's fine, but most of the time it rotates while making a sound like a windscreen wiper over a dry windscreen, not really sure what's up with it as I've stripped, cleaned and lubed it, I guess it was just dry for too long and has got a bad rotor bearing (or whatever it's called!!!)... ???

I've yet to get a Panasonic PBX, I did win one on ebay earlier this year, but the seller apparently took ill and couldn't for whatever get a friend or family member to post it, I guess they were just miffed that I got it for a pretty small sum of money and they wanted more, did get a refund though, eventually... ::)

I think my next GPO phone will be a 706, cos I haven't got one...  :D

Owain

Quote from: GG on December 18, 2011, 03:27:38 AM


In case anyone's wondering what a "twin tub" is: it's a clothes washer with a separate agitate compartment and spin compartment.  These are still made (Danby, available in the US) and I have one.  Wash in the agitate compartment, spin in the spinner, rinse in the agitate compartment, spin in the spinner again, and you're done.  You have to move the clothes back & forth between the two compartments, but it's faster than a conventional washer, uses less power, uses less water if you know a few tricks (such as leaving the rinse water from the first load in the agitate compartment to wash the second load),


Excuse me, I think you're supposed to rinse in the spinner, that way the hot sudsy wash water stays in the agitate compartment and can be used for hot whites first then warm coloureds second, you can wash the second load while rinsing and spinning the first.

Stephen Furley

I used to have loads of 706 'phones, and a few 746, but I've disposed of several due to them being too similar, and lack of space.  I don't have the early 746 type; I've only ever seen a handful, and I think they were all green.

Where were you going on the train from Burnley?  A couple of times a year I go up to Yorkshire.  I stay in Bradford, in May for the film festival, and later in the year just to get away from work for a few days.  Bradford is a great place to stay, with good transport connections to most of the North of England.  The line from Halifax, one stop on from Bradford, to Todmorden, is a very nice ride, though less so beyond there to Manchester.  Another alternative is to take the train to Blackpool North which follows the above route until Hall Royd Junction, just before Todmorden station, where it diverges onto the Copy Pit line to Burnley Manchester Road, Blackburn, Preston and eventually Blackpool North.

twocvbloke

I used to live in Colne, and the easiest way to Burnley is by train, it's the line that joins onto the one to Preston just before Burnley Rose Grove station, haven't been on that other line since I went to Halifax to see the ex (back when we were together of course), Burnley was the frequent stop for the indoor market on a Wednesday... :)

Round here though, the nearest railway station is in Chester-le-street, even though many moons ago, before the Beeching disaster, there used to be a railway running through this village at the top of this street, would be really useful today cos I don't really like travelling by bus, makes me travel sick...  :-\

GG



Owain: That's true of the Hoovermatic version and some of the other UK versions, but the Danby isn't set up to do rinses in the spin tub.  So far as whites are concerned, the usual US practice is to use bleach in the load, so that water can't be reused for colors.  However one can go in the opposite direction, colors first and then save the rinse water, use it for whites, and then bleach the whites.  Doing multiple loads in series can also run into limitations in terms of clothes lines, however the ability to save and reuse rinse water enables spreading out the process over two or more days. 

I also recycle graywater from the laundry to use for flushing the toilet, which I used to have automated, but have repurposed the storage tanks for earthquake water.  That water starts as shower purge water (the cold that's in the pipes before the hot) going into the tanks, and then cycles through laundry and to manual graywater to toilet, thereby keeping 30 - 50 gallons of fresh earthquake water on hand at all times.

This is a bit of a digression that might want to be taken to the plumbing topic under offtopic discussions, if you want to go any further with it. 

gpo706

Numbers: BT do recycle numbers, we switched from our old number (Exchange xxx)  8235 to the cable company then given a 539 xxxx number , got fed up getting shafted by them, and switched back to BT they gave us the number (same exchange xxx) 0022.

I do wonder who was lucky enough to get assigned the xxx 0001 to 0021 recycled numbers?
"now this should take five minutes, where's me screwdriver went now..?"

twocvbloke

We've been on the end of recycled numbers a couple of times with NTL/VirginMdeia, receiving calls from sky and other services asking for someone who we don't know, and the persons calling couldn't be bothered to mark those numbers as "wrong number" on those accounts, so we kept getting calls from them, but I guess that there's not enough capacity to create new numbers, so they have to re-use them, to the behest of the end user if the number was previously used by a bill-dodger... ::)

Anyway, back to the phone, I just checked the manufacturer code (forgot to do that when I got it!!), and it seems this phone is an all round Scouser, SPK was Plessy of Speke, Liverpool, I wonder if it ever took the ferry across the Mersey...  :D

gpo706

We get constant calls for an off-licence near the exchange asking to speak to "the manager", its been gone for a decade at least, so no doubt some dolt has it on a database or CD-ROM as an existing business.

Yesterday a posh woman phoned twice asking to speak to a hairdressing shop, so no doubt this took over the off-license premises or she hasn't had a hairdo since the millennium, or miss-dialled or both...
"now this should take five minutes, where's me screwdriver went now..?"

twocvbloke

Just a thought, have you registered with the TPS? Unsolicited calls asking for "the manager" might go away if you do, and you can enable Anonymous Call rejection on most BT phonelines (though I'm not sure if it's free, it was on NTL/Virgin lines that I've had) by dialling    *227#, that blocks calls from "number withheld" callers, and they have to dial 141 before your number, something most cold callers can't be bothered doing (especially if they've got an auto-dialler)... :)

Though the posh woman wanting a hairdo is pretty funny...  :D

Owain

Quote from: gpo706 on December 20, 2011, 08:57:35 PM
We get constant calls for an off-licence near the exchange asking to speak to "the manager", its been gone for a decade at least, so no doubt some dolt has it on a database or CD-ROM as an existing business.

Yesterday a posh woman phoned twice asking to speak to a hairdressing shop, so no doubt this took over the off-license premises or she hasn't had a hairdo since the millennium, or miss-dialled or both...

I'd have just given her an appointment.

Used to have a number 1 digit off the bus station, I gave out loads of bus times and people went away happy!

gpo706

Quote from: Owain on December 21, 2011, 07:01:28 AM
Quote from: gpo706 on December 20, 2011, 08:57:35 PM
We get constant calls for an off-licence near the exchange asking to speak to "the manager", its been gone for a decade at least, so no doubt some dolt has it on a database or CD-ROM as an existing business.

Yesterday a posh woman phoned twice asking to speak to a hairdressing shop, so no doubt this took over the off-license premises or she hasn't had a hairdo since the millennium, or miss-dialled or both...

I'd have just given her an appointment.

Used to have a number 1 digit off the bus station, I gave out loads of bus times and people went away happy!

We are ex-directory and TPS registered, so its obviously an old listing these marketing wallahs are on, as for the posh bit wanting a hairdo, LMFAO!

I will remember that next time!
"now this should take five minutes, where's me screwdriver went now..?"