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Old 26th Oct 2012, 3:03 pm   #1
camtechman
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Default Dating Equipment By A Telephone Number?

At first sight you'll probably think I've posted this thread on the wrong board but I think you may be more knowledgeable about telephone numbers than those on the other board.

I'm trying to come up with a more accurate date (year) when my Decca Leggero cassette recorder was made, instead of my 1968-72 guestimate.

It still has it's original guarantee card, on which the following address and phone number is shown;

Decca Radio & Televison, 15-17 Ingate Place, Queenstown Road, London SW8. Telephone: MACaulay 6677.

I've searched the t'internet for more info and found a list of London telephone number changes (as of 1968) from letter/number configuration to all number ones and MACaulay was shown as 622 (Nine Elms) but it didn't give when (date/year) this change took place.

Here's the info I found:

http://www.rhaworth.myby.co.uk/phreak/tenp_01.htm

Can anyone help me home-in on the year more accurately?

Cheers,
Tony
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Last edited by camtechman; 26th Oct 2012 at 3:04 pm. Reason: spelling error
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Old 26th Oct 2012, 4:46 pm   #2
Herald1360
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Default Re: Dating Equipment By A Telephone Number?

Would this actually help date your machine? I doubt the warranty card would have been reprinted straight away to reflect the number format change. I guess you could only be sure that the machine was produced after the number change if the new style was given. The two possible scenarios for a machine with the old style number (before and after the actual style change) are equally valid.
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Old 26th Oct 2012, 7:01 pm   #3
G6Tanuki
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Default Re: Dating Equipment By A Telephone Number?

That's the sort of question I'm sure someone over on 'Light Straw' would be able to answer.

http://www.lightstraw.co.uk/ate/main.html

Also see http://www.connected-earth.com/Journ...ands/index.htm
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Old 30th Oct 2012, 8:49 pm   #4
Tom_I
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Default Re: Dating Equipment By A Telephone Number?

I'm not sure it will be possible to narrow down the year much more, though in the London area the 3-letter codes could not be used after January 1970. According to this article:

Quote:
From 1966 telephone area codes ceased to be represented with letters. In most areas this did not require any changes to the telephone codes or numbers. However, in director telephone areas such as the London telephone area, most local exchange codes were altered in order to group them in to sectors. The change permitted new area codes to be issued that did not correspond to letters representing the location.

In the director areas the old codes continued to work in parallel with new codes until 1970 when the "ANN: All-figure Numbers Now" advertising campaign prompted callers to dial only the new codes. By October 1969 in Edinburgh 79% of calls were being made using the new local exchange codes, in London 72% and in Glasgow 43%. London was the first to withdraw the ability to dial the old codes in January 1970 and from April the parallel operation was withdrawn in the other five cities.
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Old 30th Oct 2012, 11:13 pm   #5
Dave757
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Default Re: Dating Equipment By A Telephone Number?

Hi Camtechman,

This change from letters to numbers was, as far as I know, to facilitate the introduction of Subscriber Trunk Dialling (STD). I remember being sent to a course on STD at the GPO Offices in Great Charles Street Birmingham by my employer, and this would have been in about 1962/3. This ties in nicely with your old style exchange listing from 1962, so the change must have been about this date.

Actually, I've just located 3 leaflets on 'Introducing STD', dating from around Jan 1961, and they don't mention any change from letters to figures. They do mention inserting a 0 before the numbers so that GRACE, the 'Group Routing and Charging Equipment' robot could route trunk calls! Anyone remember her?

Kind regards

Dave
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Old 30th Oct 2012, 11:55 pm   #6
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Default Re: Dating Equipment By A Telephone Number?

STD was introduced long before All Figure Numbers.

For example the dialling code for Norwich was 0N03 which under AFN became 0603. This in turn became 01603.

The exception was director areas which always used all figure STD codes, although the number itself would contain letters. For example 01 WHI 1212, 021 REC 4567 and 051 EDG 3456.
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Old 31st Oct 2012, 11:32 am   #7
julie_m
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Default Re: Dating Equipment By A Telephone Number?

..... And then, in the 1980s and 1990s, 3- and 4-figure numbers were phased out as exchanges went digital. For example, Etwall numbers changed from (028373) xxxx to 0283 73xxxx (9 to reach Burton-on-Trent from Etwall was no longer required, and 963 to reach Etwall from Derby became 0283); Sudbury numbers changed from (028378) xxx to (0283) 585xxx. So you may get an additional clue as to the date from service agents' phone numbers listed in a manual or guarantee card.
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Old 24th Nov 2012, 8:59 pm   #8
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Default Re: Dating Equipment By A Telephone Number?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave757 View Post
Hi Camtechman,

This change from letters to numbers was, as far as I know, to facilitate the introduction of Subscriber Trunk Dialling (STD). I remember being sent to a course on STD at the GPO Offices in Great Charles Street Birmingham by my employer, and this would have been in about 1962/3. This ties in nicely with your old style exchange listing from 1962, so the change must have been about this date.

Actually, I've just located 3 leaflets on 'Introducing STD', dating from around Jan 1961, and they don't mention any change from letters to figures. They do mention inserting a 0 before the numbers so that GRACE, the 'Group Routing and Charging Equipment' robot could route trunk calls! Anyone remember her?

Kind regards

Dave
The quote in message #4 is correct. I have a large collection of STD codebooks going back to the start of STD - one early book only has two pages of codes! I've been researching both STD codes and local dialling codes for some while. I can confirm that the change to 'all figure numbering' started in 1966. Letters formed part of the STD code from the introduction of STD in 1958 until 1966 - I have an STD book from early 1966 showing Letters in the STD code and those from late 1966 in 'all figure' format. I remember the change as I was a GPO engineer at the time.

However in 'Director' areas (London, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Glasow, Liverpool and Manchester), letters formed part of the seven digit telephone number from the introduction of automation in such areas in 1927. The first three letters of the exchange name formed part of the number i.e. a Whitehall number would be dialled WHI 121 to quote what was a well known number. However as the quote in #4 mentions, these codes ran in parallel with the new three digit codes in the 1960's when some of the director area exchanges were grouped into sectors and their codes changed. For instance WHItehall (944 in numerics) became 930. The director area exchange codes ran in parallel until c1970 but the new codes were listed from 1966. The old exchange names were still listed with their new codes until late 1974.
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