Short dialling codes

[Graham1]

Can anyone help with the old short dialling codes for:
Leamington Spa
Kenilworth
Stratford on Avon
All in Warwickshire
(Levels 8 & 9)


Many thanks

Graham

Does that (did!) rather depend from where you were dialing?

[Graham1]

The codes required are from Coventry, Leamington Spa, Rugby & Stratford upon Avon all in WKS to other exchanges some I know are listed below
Thanks for the above help

0926 2xxxx Leamington Spa /70 NDM 98 fm Rugby/81,
0926 4xxxx Warwick /70 NDS 98 fm Rugby/81,
0926 5xxxx Kenilworth /70 NDS 98 fm Rugby/81,
6 Stratford on Avon (0789) Bill Borland
7 Coventry (0203) Bill Borland
81 Southam
82 Kineton (Warwicks)
83 Marton (Warks)
83 Valiant UAX13 (relief in 1974/75 but to which?)
84 Claverdon
85 Moreton Morrell
86 Barford
86 Priory Park (relief) /80>/82
87 Haseley Knob
88 Harbury
89 Harbury Wells(relief)
91 Rugby (0788) Bill Borland
92 Coventry (0203) Bill Borland
93 Stratford on Avon (0789) Bill Borland
94 Banbury (0295) Bill Borland
The above are some of the codes for Leamington still more required.

[julie_m]

Short codes used to have some delightful oddities about them.

Etwall in Derbyshire (STD 028373) was a satellite exchange of Burton-on-Trent in Staffordshire (STD 0283). To call an Etwall number from Burton, you dialled 73 followed by the 4-digit Etwall number. To call Burton from Etwall, you dialled 9 followed by the Burton number. Other satellite exchanges were Barton-under-Needwood (4 digit numbers; STD 028371), Hoar Cross (3 digit numbers; STD 028375) and Sudbury (3 digit numbers; STD 028378). Etwall to Hoar Cross was 975; Sudbury to Barton under Needwood was 971; Burton to Sudbury was 78.

Burton to Derby was 93. Etwall, Barton-under-Needwood, Hoar Cross and Sudbury to Derby was 993. Derby to Burton was 962. Derby to Barton-under-Needwood, Hoar Cross and Sudbury respectively were 96271, 96275 and 96278. You might suppose that to call Etwall from Derby, you would have to dial 96273; but since Etwall was between Derby and Burton (and Barton-under-Needwood, Hoar Cross and Sudbury were all nearer to Burton than to Derby) the GPO obligingly supplied a shorter short code, 963, to call an Etwall number from within Derby.

Short codes were not always subject to concatenation, because the exchange knew whether you were coming in as a phone on that exchange, or by a trunk. The short code from Derby to Ashbourne (STD 0335) was 91, and there were short codes for Ashbourne satellite exchanges formed by replacing the 0335 with 91. However, from Burton-on-Trent, the short code for Ashbourne was 939, not 9391; from a trunk going into Derby, 9 was routed to the same place as 91 from an actual Derby line. This effectively denied subscribers in Burton-on-Trent and its satellite areas from calling anywhere that would have been reached from Derby by a code beginning with 9 (besides 91 codes).

Also, Cannock in Staffordshire (4 digit numbers; STD 05435) was a satellite exchange from Lichfield (STD 0543), and the Burton-on-Trent and Lichfield areas were geographically adjacent; but although these were local calls, there were no short codes either to call Burton from Lichfield or to call Lichfield from Burton -- just 0283 and 0543, the same as anywhere else. And although it was an hour's drive down the A38, a call from Etwall to Cannock would be charged at local rates!

*sigh* It was all fascinating stuff in its time -- and now it's just wasting space in my memory that cannot be used for anything else ever again

[HamishBoxer]

May be wasted but you still remember it! That is what matters.

[Pellseinydd]

Originally Posted by ajs_derby

Short codes used to have some delightful oddities about them.

<SNIP>

*sigh* It was all fascinating stuff in its time -- and now it's just wasting space in my memory that cannot be used for anything else ever again [/

You might think they are no longer used!!

In fact they are still used when dialling around our replica of the old GPO network as it was thirty or more years ago using a variety of old exchanges including former GPO public exchanges we have preserved - I have one that served a village in Northumberland from 1929 until 1950 and anther that served the UK's most remote island - Foula until July 1995.

We still dial '01' for London, 021 for Birmingham, 0244 for Chester etc. 8081 / TIM still gets you Pat Simmons - the voice of the GPO's Speaking Clock from the mid 1960 for twenty years.

International is still 010 plus the country code and the other country's old dialling code and number - for instance 010 61 3 1194 gets you the original Australian Speaking Clock in the Victorian Telecoms Museum in Melbourne or 010 64 8532 xxx gets the Glenbrook Vintage Railway in New Zealand or 010 64 9 3xxxx gets you into the preserved 1920's exchange at MOTAT, the NZ equivalent of our Science Museum.

You'll find more numbers at www.ckts.info/192/uk with links to the 17 other countries that have systems connected!

So you never know - you may be the only person sat on this dialling information as it hasn't survived in the BT Archives unfortunately. I'm building a database of the codes as 'tis I who set the codes up on this network. Any help with codes is much appreciated.

[julie_m]

Well, yeah. My Asterisk is actually set up so you dial 963 + old 4-digit Etwall number to get 0128373xxxx, also 97 + old 6-digit Nottingham number for 01159xxxxxx and 963 + old 4-digit Belper number to get 0177382xxxx. Just for a touch of whimsy!

[Pellseinydd]

I had a similar scheme set up on a Bosch I3 Duo digital PABX about ten years ago on a preserved railway at Porthmadog. It was set up such that the old 'Pat Symmonds' Speaking Clock was reached by 98081 - BT directory Enquiries was on 9192 (rather than 9 118500) and the Porthmadog six digit numbers that began with 51xxx were all reached by dialling 9 plus the last four digits. When the BT engineer came to fit Broadband - he needed to ring the exchange. I told him he needed to dial 9 followed by the old four digit number. He was amazed when it worked. I demonstrated the Clock and DQ to him. By then I had convinced him that the Railway's BT line was on a part of Porthmadog exchange that never got converted to digital !! I often wonder what he said when he went back to the exchange !!