Dial label origins

[Tim]

Hi phone buffs.
I received a Tele 332 (for repair/conversion) today and was intreagued by the dial label. Hawthorn exchange is near us, and adjacent to a Signal Core(ask Avro!! He used to work there.) base.
I wondered if this could have been an MOD phone(or label?) given the designations for emergency services and emergency number of 222.
I know some switchboards used to use 222 (Hospitals?)

Phone has faulty dial, but I'll start a seperate thread for that.

[Radio_Dave]

Hi Tim,

A bit of Googling suggests it's because the telephone was on an internal line. Saves you dialing (9)999 I suppose!

David

[russell_w_b]

Originally Posted by Tim

Hi phone buffs.
I received a Tele 332 (for repair/conversion) today and was intreagued by the dial label. Hawthorn exchange is near us, and adjacent to a Signal Core(ask Avro!! He used to work there.) base.
I wondered if this could have been an MOD phone(or label?) given the designations for emergency services and emergency number of 222.
I know some switchboards used to use 222 (Hospitals?)

Phone has faulty dial, but I'll start a seperate thread for that.

Not Hawthorn, the planned retreat beneath Corsham where HM Govt. planned to evacuate to during potential nuclear annhilation? Good heavens! - There might have been some famous fingers circumnavigating that dial!

Seriously, though, I'm intrigued by the lightning warning (never seen that before) up alongside F,P and A. I would hazard a guess and suggest that the telephone was installed in some magazine or, perhaps, part of the U/G munitions storage at Corsham.

Or am I miles out and talking tosh?

[russell_w_b]

Originally Posted by Radio_Dave

Hi Tim,

A bit of Googling suggests it's because the telephone was on an internal line. Saves you dialing (9)999 I suppose!

David

When I were a lad on the Workington exchange, it was only necessary to dial 99 to access the emergency services; the last 9 was superfluous. I wondered, in retrospect, if this was so that users of extensions on internal exchanges could dial 999 instead of 9999.

[Station X]

The reason was that outlying exchanges dialled the digit 9 to access the Group Switching Centre (GSC) thus one nine had been used up and could not be regenerated. So at the GSC it was arranged that only two nines needed to be dialled. In fact the operator often answered quickly and heard the last 9 pulsing in his/her ear.

If a PABX was connected to an outlying exchange 9999 would have to be dialled.

Some big firms had their own emergency services and so liked to have 222 as an internal emergency number. This worked fine so long as there was someone there to answer 222, but sometimes this didn't happen and precious time was wasted.

[arjoll]

Originally Posted by russell_w_b

I wondered, in retrospect, if this was so that users of extensions on internal exchanges could dial 999 instead of 9999.

This was the case in NZ, where all exchanges would (and probably still do) accept '11' as the emergency number as well as 111. Most PABX's used 1 for an outside line - again most still do, Panasonics being the main exception using 9 - so dialling 111 from an extension would work.

Of course when I was working at an accounting firm we had compulsory account for billing, so the signs around the building said 'In case of emergency, dial 3-999999-1-111'

[RobinBirch]

Hi All,
Know nothing about phones but the "flash" intrigues me. It is the sort of thing that you would expect around a magazine or munitions dump so maybe the idea that this came from the one next door to Corsham is right.

Robin

[Tom_I]

Below is a similar label from a place where I used to work. It had a manned switchboard. To make an external call you had to dial 0 to get through to the switchboard operator, then ask for an outside line. The emergency number 222 rang a priority phone which the operator was supposed to answer instantly if it rang.

Unlike Tim's this one does not list the emergency categories. I'm also intrigued to know exactly what "flash" means. As has been suggested, it makes you wonder if it was from some sort of munitions installation.

Tom

[Tim]

It just occurred to me that maybe this was "code", if the phone was used over a public network, and the powers that be didn't want Joe public to know what was going on!.

[Herald1360]

Wasn't (isn't?) "FLASH" a codeword used to allow operators to route a call regardless (overriding everything). Kind of shoot first and ask questions afterwards! Only to be used in extremis and God help you if you misused it..... Presumably "LIGHTNING" and "URGENT" are decreasing priorities with lesser powers.

Chris

[Station X]

The used to be what was known as a "Fire Flash Call". It dates back to the days before fire appliances had two way radios.

On arriving at an incident if a fire oficer decided that further appliances were needed he would send a runner to the nearest phonebox. The runner would contact the operator and ask for a "Fire Flash call" to [the phone number of the Fire Service HQ]. The call would be connected free of charge. To prevent abuse operators had a list of numbers to which such calls could be made. 999 calls were not used for this purpose, as it would clog up 999 circuits unnecessarially.

Incidently if you make a 999 call the call is routed from the operator to the emergency services just like any other operator call, but to dedicated numbers used only for such calls.

[Baker Light]

Out of interest there is a very fine telephone site that contains a section on dial labels: www.telephonesuk.co.uk.
Best wishes, Michael

[AndiiT]

Originally Posted by Tom_I

.... I'm also intrigued to know exactly what "flash" means.... Tom

Hi,
There may be numerous meanings in the telecoms industry for the word "Flash" but I have always understood it to come from the saying "flash the switch hook" which in practice is nothing more than tapping the telephones hook switch rapidly once in an attempt to create a 100mS line break equivalent to that which a "timed break" recall button would produce.

The "flash" referring to the lamp on the operators switchboard flashing at this point (usually in conjunction with an audible alarm, but not always) to gain their attention.

Why not just use the Recall button I hear the more inquisitive of you ask? Some telephones were not fitted with them and others were wired for Earth recall only.

Back to the original question - I have seen some internal extension telephones with "Dial 222 for emergency" on them (mainly in hospitals and some large schools as I remember) but didn't realize that they only connected to an operators priority telephone, suspecting that the routing within the PBX was set up to automatically route the call to the public emergency service operator.

Andrew

[ppppenguin]

Originally Posted by AndiiT

There may be numerous meanings in the telecoms industry for the word "Flash" ....

The Recall button on my Samsung cordless phone is marked Flash. It does a standard timed break recall, as needed for call waiting. I had wondered about why it was marked that way. Now I know.