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Old 8th Jun 2022, 4:57 pm   #8
Pellseinydd
Heptode
 
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: Flintshire, UK.
Posts: 707
Default Re: Development of the STD (Subscriber Trunk Dialling) system

Quote:
Originally Posted by dazzlevision View Post
I don’t remember the recorded message, but I do recall that the Abingdon exchange was the last one to go STD.
Just to make a correction. Abingdon may have been the last to get STD in the Oxford Telephone Area - it had STD when it went automatic between end of March 1975 and end of March 1976.

But at the end of Match 1976 there were still plenty of exchanges without STD - there were 26 in the Aberdeen Telephone Area, with another 14 in the rest of Scotland. And there were many more in England, Scotland and Wales at the end of March 1977!

They were either UAX14's awaiting conversion to TXE2 when they got STD. Many of the others were UAX12's which got replaced with SAX's except in Scotland where they were so few subs it was cheaper to add E, F & G racks to give STD facilities.

At the end of March 1978, there were still five exchanges without STD facilities -
Bryn Meurig Non-Director moblie - Cardiff Telephone Area.
Cross Maglen UAX13 mobile - Belfast Telephone Area -Northern Ireland
Furnace End UAX13 in Birmingham Telephone Area
Kirkby Fleetham UAX13 Middlesborough Telephone Aea
Tonypandy UAX14 Cardiff Telephone Area

By the end of March, the Post Office no longer listed which exchanges hadn't got STD so I assume that all exchanges had it by then. I'm lucky enough to have the set (virtually every year) of the annual 'List of Exchanges' which list all exchanges with various features for each one running from mid 1920's until the last printed version in the mid 1980's. After that the info was put on BT's 'internal 'Intranet' and hence has been 'lost' as I'm not aware of the info being kept for posterity except for the 1988 info which I have.

I have some STD code books where there are only two pages of STD codes! The info dates from late 1959. How times have changed!

For those with a line on CNet (our replica of the GPO public network in the 1970/80's) a recording of HMQ making the 'first' STD call from Bristol to the Lord Provost of Edinburgh in December 1958 by dialling Spon Green (0244 52) 2233. I was told shortly afterwards that the call was actually made over a direct private wire rather than dialed through the network. Just in case of a problem it was said but don't know if it is fact. Wouldn't surprise me with the GPO wanting nothing to go wrong!

I had joined the GPO Telephones shortly after (and still 'playing' telephones).
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