DTELS - Home Office emergency comms.

[G6Tanuki]

Browsing around, I came across this fascinating site:

http://www.dtels.org/index.html

which includes a gallery of various historic fixed/mobile communications installations used by the Emergency Services over the years.

Some of it is from before I was born, other kit I can remember working on early in my career!

Of amusement is the photo of the device used to open up sealed batteries used on Pye PF1 Pocketfones, for restuffing with new cells. Seems nothing's new!

[Martin G7MRV]

I joined Kippax NAMU shortly after the transfer to NTL, narrowly missing out on a decent pension! The Kippax photos submitted by Dave Singh (who was my manager) in 2007 show a lot of people I knew well! (and a couple of ladies some of us would have liked to know better!)

The photo from 2007 of the fella in specs working on a RC690 covert control head, is my colleague and immediate desk mate Nick! My bench was the one immediately to his left, and between us we specialised in Cleartone equipment, whilst I also did Kenwoods. You can just see my print of a Berretta sales advert featuring the Mona Lisa on the side of my bench!

I myself am not on these photos, as I had transferred to the TV NCSC at Emley Moor shortly before.

[RY57Nigel]

Great to here of some one else who worked at the DTELS I worked at the Romsley Dept from 1981 - 1986 and and they were some of the most fun years I ever had at work.
I took my name on here from my call sign which was RY57 the first part standing for Romsley.

[Martin G7MRV]

In the post DTELs years I was the only person to make use of Kippax's callsign M2RX, used it for on air tests with the local gaols.

Managed to inadvertently use it on air on 2m once as well!

[Skywave]

When I was attending college in Cheltenham during the early 1970s, there was one chap on our course who worked at the DTELS branch at Stoke Orchard - as it was then located. I can't recollect his name, but I'll never forget the remark he made one day about the difficulties he often experienced when repairing police portable radios:
"Repairing those is not as easy as the owners think: they don't realise that the devil lies in the DTels!

Al.

[russell_w_b]

I remember my first BBC attachment to Hannington in '87. I inadvertently walked into the (unlocked, wide-open) DTELS building, which was opposite the BBC building, announced myself as an attachee, and was shown round the workshop.

When I told them where I was from I was promptly shown the door!

[Martin G7MRV]

hehehe, the old DTELs mobs could be somewhat cagey!

Kippax was it seemed unofficially the 'secure psychiatric' unit of the home office! It seemed to be where all the missfits and wierdos who couldnt be left alone around normal people were sent! At least, we seemed to have had more than our fair share of oddballs over the years (myself inc.!) which considering the industry we were in is rather a bold statement!

We had a 'quote book' running whilst I was there, in which were recorded all the odd, bizzarre and generally wierd things uttered by the various staff, and which makes troubling reading!

One fella who worked there would spend days working out a fault down to first principles, when everyone else would just change the £2 module! He went on to work in the intellegence field!

But in the six or so years I was there, I saw the demise of the PMR/PSR industry. At the start, I could collect up armfulls of radios to fix, and they would be instantly replaced on the racks with more by the logistics girls. By the time I left, I could stand for hours in the back room (thats the one with the pillar drill in the photos) staring at empty racks. My last week was spent staring gloomily at a W15AM, knowing full well I had no spares for it.

It amazed me how many houses they squeezed onto the land after they demolished the place.

[Damo666]

I have a huge stockpile of DTEL PF1/Burndept 8.4V 80mAH NiCads here date marked 6/95, and after lying unused for nearly 20 Years are now in use and at full capacity.

I paid around £20 for about 40 of them.

Damn good quality packs evidently after coming to life after such a long state of redundancy!

[RY57Nigel]

Martin's comments couldn't be any closer to the truth.

[russell_w_b]

Sounds like a parallel universe to that occupied by contemporary BBC Transmitter engineers!

[Martin G7MRV]

Well - BBC transmission became Crown Castle became National Grid Wireless;
DTELs became NTL, which included IBA transmission;
NTL became Arqiva, Arqiva bought National Grid Wireless,

I work for Arqiva in the Broadcast Service Management Centre! where we control the IBA and BBC transmitter networks!

Seems the transmission industry likes to keep close control over its eccentrics!

[russell_w_b]

Originally Posted by Martin G7MRV

Seems the transmission industry likes to keep close control over its eccentrics!

Sadly, it isn't as it was. I ought to have said 'contemporaneous' rather than contemporary, for I am referring to 'back then'. Back then when certain engineers would swig meths behind the bays; would ride motorcycles with exploding petrol tanks; would drive sheep around BBC ETD Wood Norton and divert main-road traffic similarly; would get up a gang and put someone's Mini-car up on the roof; would assemble a rat's nest of (live) discrete components in their rooms and attach them to loudspeakers by way of a home entertainment system...

I suspect more than a few eccentric-but-talented engineers would have what is now recognised as Asperger's Syndrome: I certainly came across several peeps whose social skills and focussed genius fell into those categories. Of course, there were the truly brilliant 'all-round' engineers as well as those who required gentle coaxing and encouragement, mentored by those hitherto described. In general, we all rubbed along well (those who couldn't stand each other would transfer or at least be civil on the surface), found our place, and so this eclectic cross-section of humanity got on with the job and did their best, fitting in one way or another with the avuncular, structured, respected organisation to which they owed their living (I also suspect, for more than one or two, the money was a bonus; a 'nice-to-have').

And I reckon DTELS would be similar. And Marconi; GEC; ITA; Cable and Wireless...

In the dying days of Merlin - the company for whom we at the BBC HF sites ended up - I asked one of the HR women who was up at Skelton on a visit whether she would prefer to employ those of a twisted genious disposition, whose strengths, if nurtured and guided, would far outweigh, in value to the company, any deviant behaviour, or whether she would prefer to employ compliant, nondescript, anodyne people who could be moulded and controlled.

She preferred the latter; she aspired to mediocrity. It seemed the company couldn't cope with anything that fell to the edges of the Gaussian curve of 'normality'.

You may draw your own conclusions from this narrow mindedness. But from what I've seen currently, those who are brilliant engineers but perceived as 'difficult' are hounded out. They will get you, in time. And this is sad.

[RY57Nigel]

We had loads of good wheezes during my Dtels time. We discovered that emptying the contents of cans of RS freezer cans into plastic pop bottles produced a good rocket.
By the time we reached version 7 with fins and nose cones we reached the full height of Romsey's main mast!!

Also whilst one engineer was off sick the transceiver he had spent working on was duly rigged so that when he returned and first switched on the set an old fashioned flash bulb exploded followed by smoke being blown in by way of 3M of insulation sleeve from the other side of the bench ha ha. I will remember the horror on his face to my dying day.

Many more stories where they came from, happy days the crack was good but the pay was poor.

[Martin G7MRV]

Yes, freezer spray rockets made from heatshrink tubing and hot melt glue! my they went a long way!

The usual pranks at Kippax were coming back to your bench to find all your test gear upside down - either in their normal place but each on upside down, or the who stack upside down, quite scary to see a Marconi 2955 balanced atop a fluke 77!, or to find all your tools in your tool tray axactly as you left them, until you went for any and found they were all superglued down!

Often also you would come back and find all your tools missing - until you looked up, and found them all embedded in the ceiling! (very scary when you look up and find a Swan-Morton 10A scalpel above you!)

The one prank that we didnt play was proposed against a particularly annoying member of staff, who was going to be on the receiving end of having his test set coax leads 'pinned', we thought better of it as we wanted to keep our jobs!

Another common occurence was to go 'on tour' which meant travelling from the top workshop to make use of the better quality plumbing facilities at the other end of the building!

[russell_w_b]

Did DTELS have an attachment system like the BBC, whereas you'd be sent off to the other end of the country for three months to 'fill in'?

[RY57Nigel]

Yes they did but only for technician grade and above. I had the grand title of Wireless Mechanic no wonder I am a mad keen vintage radio collector eh!

[bill knox]

I joined the Directorate of Telecomunications as it was before Dtels in 1967 and was stationed at Cranbrook in Kent, in 1984 I was for my sins, promoted and then went to Bedford where we went through the DTELS mode and then on to NTL, I retired in 1999 and I must say I was glad to get away.
In the D.O.T you worked on a problem until it was solved, with NTL they only had interest in profit the job came second.
It was a very varied job, and the personnel were a very good bunch on the whole.

Bill

[Denis G4DWC]

I consider I had a good career with Dtels. I started at Hannington on Sept 14th 1969. And then moved to Thames Valley Police as senior tech in 1976. In 1979 I moved to Kippax as one of the two Depot CWTs. There's a picture of much younger me with the Office girls on the Dtels Web site. I could see the writing on the wall with privatisation and decided to escape to pastures new before it happened in 1985. I had some really good times and many really interesting jobs. I consider myself fortunate and don't regret it at all. Just a bit sad to see the buildings knocked down. I can see my old Car parking space in those Kippax Pics.

Denis

[Dave/G4BOO]

Like Bill I joined Dtels in 1967 and was stationed at Cranbrook. Hope you are well Bill and good to see you made Senior Tec. I went to Hannington in 1983 and then on to MPG Weyhill in 1987. I left in 1993 when MPG Weyhill closed. As Denis said the writing was on the wall and it was time to move on. I went on to work for both the Private and Public sectors.

I remember an RWE saying, "Working in the DTels is like being in the engineering side of the services, only we allow you to go home sometimes" We did work long hours back in the late 1960's early 1970's as communication needs were rapidly expanding and staff numbers hadn't caught up at that time.

I agree with Denis, it is sad it's all now gone. Good days overall.

Regards To all,
Dave