'Glophone'

[Pellseinydd]

I have what looks like a normal DTMF 'Statesman' style telephone. But it has one slight difference - it glows in the dark ! The entire thing glows - case , handset and even the handset cord !

From the GPT label on the base ' D 144400 B GEN 89' Made in 1989.

From memory I think it was known as the 'Glophone' but may have been the 'Glowphone'. Sadly I can't find the leaflet I had on it. Can anyone remember its correct name? Nothing on Bob Freshwater's Britishtelephines.com website.

First two photos taken without any light or flash!

Ian

[Nickthedentist]

WOW

[Dave Moll]

I don't suppose you have a Geiger counter handy, do you? Goodness knows what they would have used for luminosity when it was made!

[G6Tanuki]

I recall a wall-mounted version of these being fitted as emergency phones in quite a few facilities which, let's just say that due to their construction/location, were entirely impervious to natural light.

They invariably had a red "Emergency - 2222" sticker on them too, with the letters/numbers being transparent so they appeared green on a 'black' background when in the dark.

[AndiiT]

Hi, I think that it may be the first time that I have seen one of these phones. It certainly gives the luminous Trimphone dial a run for its money

Andrew

[andy1702]

That's a very impressive glow. And manufactured just 3 years after Chernobyl too.

Seriously though, I read something about there being concerns about a skip load of old trimphone dials giving off radiation. What would a skip full of these be like?

[TonyDuell]

There were many scares about TRIMphones, mostly due to the public's total ignorance of science.

The GPO instructions don't help, warning you not to dismantle a TRIMphone dial if you suspect the betalight tube has broken. Well, the glass is a hazard, but there will be no detectable residual tritium if the tube breaks, It will escape. No question.

My late father worked with Tritium professionally at one point. His comment when I got my first TRIMphone (many years after that) and showed him the betalight tube was that the biggest hazard if it fractured was the broken glass. Then the phosphor. The tritium was no danger at all 'unless you are really stupid with it'.

As he said 'Don't pack your pillowcase with TRIMphone dials, but don't worry about a few on the bench'.

The half life of tritium is bit over 12 years IIRC, so a TRIMphone dial has gone through 3 half lives by now, and is down to about 1/8th of the original actiivity.

I wonder what the Glophone uses. I assume it doesn't need to be 'charged' by exposing it to light for a period, it just keeps glowing.

[russell_w_b]

Used Trimphones were gathered in and accounted for and stored in depots in Wales (?) prior to official disposal as I understand. Apart from the odd few that circumvented the system, that is...

Might the 'Glophone' be made from photoluminescent material, like some emergency exit signs? If there was tritium in it, it would've faded by now, I reckon, as any tritium-filled watch I've seen has faded after about eleven years.

[matthewhouse]

That's outstanding! Makes my brown Statesman look even more boring than it already is.

[Pellseinydd]

Originally Posted by TonyDuell

I wonder what the Glophone uses. I assume it doesn't need to be 'charged' by exposing it to light for a period, it just keeps glowing.

It does glow a lot better when exposed to light - brighter the better. The Material is slightly translucent. Never been used - normally lives in a clear poly bag on top of the wardrobe. Glows nicely once the bedroom light goes off!

[TonyDuell]

If it needs to be 'charged' by exposure to light (as you imply) it is probably a just a phosphorescent material. Quite possibly toxic (but it is effectively a dye in the plastic and I can't believe you are going to eat the telephone ) but not radioactive.

[Radio Wrangler]

I suspect it's a phosphorescent dye re-radiating stored light energy, because even the curly handset cord is glowing.

But I'd still want to get it checked with something which can detect beta emission.

Good point on the potential toxicity.

Some camera lens glass additives are slightly soluble in water and toxic. They're usually in exotic lenses, but don't lick any optical lens! Some wartime optical glasses had heavy element additives to give extreme refractive indices, but were also radioactive.

Most people wouldn't think things as routine and benign as glass and plastic could be toxic.

David

[dseymo1]

Wouldn't a radioactive lens fog the emulsion, assuming that the radiation was significant at a few inches range?

[Radio Wrangler]

You would think so, but they were indeed made and used. Photo-Reconnaissance jobs made by Kodak were the most common. 30% thorium oxide by weight! I think I saw one for sale in M&B's in the early '70s

I mentioned them to show that thoriated filaments aren't the only active things the public wouldn't expect.

I'll worry less about my 2% thoriated tungsten welding electrodes, now...

David

[julie_m]

Maybe the radiation was weak enough to be blocked out by just any normal glass in the optical system and the shutter?

[emeritus]

The high UV content of fluorescent lamps, whether strip lights or CFL lamps, are good for making this sort of thing fluoresce strongly. I have a couple of "black light" UV lamps (from Maplin) that are particularly effective. I did once try using some "Humbrol" luminous paint on the buttons of a "Statesman" phone to make them visible in the dark, but the luminosity was very weak and faded so quickly as to be useless.

Incidentally, I have one of the "Radioactive" lenses; a Pentax Super Takumar f/1.4. This type of lens goes yellow due to the action of the radioactive glass element on the cement that secures some of the doublet elements together. Exposing to strong UV (such as the Maplin black lamps) for a couple of days restores transparency. The radiation level of the Pentax lens (mainly directed to the front, away from the film) exceeds exceeds the present-day legal radiation limit threshold, but an exception is made for lenses as there is no substitute glass having the same optical properties. A lens that does emit potentially dangerous levels of radiation (don't keep it under your bed!) is the f/2.9 Aero Ektar that was used for aerial reconnaissance in WWII. I well recall them being widely advertised in the Amateur Photographer in the 1960's for use as cheap, wide aperture, telephoto lenses. Radioactivity was not mentioned! Fogging would not have been a problem as they were for use with large format plate/sheet film cameras, so the film was not only at least 10" away from the film, but the film would not have remained in the camera for long enough to get fogged. But this is wandering off topic: there is plenty of info on the internet: look for radio active lenses and you will find plenty of info.

[Radio Wrangler]

There are some quite efficient biological light emitters found in extremely deep-sea fish and in some woodland fungi. The fish ones, working in a perpetually dark environment can't be simple phosphorescent light stores, so they need a power source as a sort of food-powered LED.

I don't know whether the fungi are simply phosphorescent or whether their light output is powered. I suspect the latter as they live in dingy areas. I wonder what they are glowing for? To attract something? or to warn something off?

The phone could be phosphorescent, but to get a long period of light output would require an energy input. The statesman phone is too early for efficient LEDs that could make a little light from an amount of current that wouldn't make the phone seize the line, yet it's late enough that all the business of collecting and disposing (at Drigg I recall) of all the trim phone tritium capsules. Chronologically, it ought to be a phosphorescent light store, but the photo does make it look bright... unless it had been well pumped prior to taking the shot?

David

[ms660]

Without going too much OT I can vouch for the light emitting woodland fungi, especially on dead Birch.

Lawrence.

[turretslug]

I recall my grandmother having a sizeable tub of luminous paint powder, it was white in colour, quite light in weight and very finely powdered- like talcum powder or icing sugar, very dispersible if you blew or breathed near it. It was vividly phosphorescent for a short while after illumination but soon faded. On several occasions, I used a small amount of it mixed with either water or PVA as a kid as a novelty way of giving a glow to unexpected things. Of course, one time I visited, I asked about the paint and was told that it had been thrown out. And haven't we all had something like that happen!

Whilst her extensive and wide-ranging work as a physiotherapist in the '30's brought her into contact with then novel techniques such as radiotherapy and diathermy, I'm convinced that this stuff was innocuous from its relatively fleeting luminosity and I've a feeling that it might have been a zinc compound from its whiteness, lightness and fineness of grain, I think a few zinc compounds exhibit phosphorescence. How I wished I'd hung onto it for plastic resin mixes etc., much as I wish I'd hung onto her slightly frightening "portable" 6 metre diathermy set with its push-pull 3C150As. Oh well, if we hung onto too much junk, we'd be unable to move by now.

Post-script- a quick bit of searching reveals that strontium aluminate phosphorescent pigment powder is still widely available.