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Vintage Telephony and Telecomms Vintage Telephones, Telephony and Telecomms Equipment |
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29th Sep 2009, 11:28 pm | #1 |
Dekatron
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GEC Reliance Phone
I have an old phone here, it's maked 'GEC Reliance' with the GEC written in the 1960's curly writing way. Underneath it's marked 'E-Link 101'. It's a push-button phone, so not exactly vintage, but I just wondered what 'system' it's designed to work with, eg PABX etc. I've had it about 20 years.
Apologies if it's too young for the forum but we do seem to have alot of ex-BT guys 'in the know'. Kevin
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30th Sep 2009, 8:20 am | #2 |
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Re: GEC Reliance Phone
Let's have a pic, Kevin.
Nick. |
30th Sep 2009, 10:42 am | #3 |
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Re: GEC Reliance Phone
I had a look round last night but couldn't determine anything beyond the Reliance name. This will relate to the Reliance Telephone Co. who were, or became, a GEC subsiduary.
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30th Sep 2009, 10:49 am | #4 |
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Re: GEC Reliance Phone
Looking on Bob Freshwater's site (I Googled "E-Link 101"), it would appear that it might be related to BT's "Ambassador" series, at least cosmetically. Certainly 1980s.
Some of these can be connected straight to a BT line and will work as basic phones, whilst others (usually the ones with "mirror-image" plugs) are pretty much useless unless you have the matching PABX system. Nick. Last edited by Nickthedentist; 30th Sep 2009 at 11:02 am. Reason: Added extra info re. usefulness |
30th Sep 2009, 10:53 am | #5 |
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Re: GEC Reliance Phone
It might be, yes. If Kevin can provide the requested image, we should be able to determine something more.
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30th Sep 2009, 8:17 pm | #6 |
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Re: GEC Reliance Phone
Here we are
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30th Sep 2009, 9:20 pm | #7 |
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Re: GEC Reliance Phone
Yes,
These are standard phones with the GEC Reliance logo kiss printed on. I used to work for the company, and have seen many a dozen of them. The company started out as the Reliance Telephone Company in North London, then moved to Wellingborough in the 1960s. It became Reliance Systems dealing in PAX, PABX, Hotel Roomcall systems (it was on "Crossroads" I believe), and CCTV systems. Part of the GEC group. Then rebranded to GEC Reliance, then GPT Sale & Service (part of GEC Plessey Telecomms), and finally Siemens. Hope this helps, any other ex-staff out there? Bob.
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21st Nov 2009, 5:35 pm | #8 |
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Re: GEC Reliance Phone
My name is Ron Murray and I started my telecommunications career with RTC in Edinburgh. Did Reliance not start as The Magnet Telephone Co.Ltd? and was always a GEC subsidiary as far as I know.
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25th Nov 2009, 9:14 pm | #9 |
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Re: GEC Reliance Phone
Hello Ron,
As far as I know, the Reliance Telephone Company was started in London by Ernest Silberman, and was bought out by GEC. Anyone out there got any more information? I know because of Arnie Weinstock's legentary generosity, we were exceedingly well paid, and had the privelege of being the last company in the known universe to use those Bedford HA Viva vans, as well as ancient Telequipment scopes where you bought a round if you got one to trigger. Bob.
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20th Dec 2009, 6:39 pm | #10 |
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Re: GEC Reliance Phone
E101 was a cheap re-badged import phone brought in when they were trying desperately to have their 'own' phone range (there were 5 in the range).
they were basically simple std phones, would work with just about anything, were sold as the basic option with everything from D-link (Dodgy link) small PABX's though to SLX (sorry, iSLX!) big PABX's at the time, they were famous internally for the fabled £1M E-link order (for those that remember them days!) |
4th Mar 2010, 10:08 pm | #11 |
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Re: GEC Reliance Phone
Yes Bob you were right.
I still have an old telequipment scope in the shed which is still working. If my memory serves me well you and I used to work in the same department at Reliance etc. The earliest e-link telephones i remember where model 746's having a signaling system which involved placing diodes in various configurations when pressing the digit keys. I think it was called DC leg signaling. The keypad had a metal frame on the back which moved a frame arrangement operating a microswitch which was difficult to adjust properly. They could only be used with electro mechanical exchanges which were modified with electronics to accept this code. Those were the days. By the way the Wellingorough location has now closed its doors and all remaining people moved to M/K. Best Regards Tim |
11th Apr 2010, 9:01 pm | #12 |
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Re: GEC Reliance Phone
Just wondering is anything left of Reliance after rebranding of GEC to Marconi then Siemens etc?
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14th Jun 2010, 3:37 pm | #13 |
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Re: GEC Reliance Phone
Hi There, I worked for Reliance Telephone Company in Birmingham from 1977 to 1989, The E101 phone used DC leg signalling and only worked with the CH100 crossbar pabx (they also modded a PAX5100 to work with it too).
After a number of years, they became GEC Reliance, then with the merger of Plessey became GPT. The guy who mentioned D-Link, this was Digilink, and came in a 64 and 128 port version, it could run normal, Hotel and ACD software. They were made by Dellfield Digital in Stroud (later Austin Taylor Comms) I left GPT to join them in 1990. Any info on Reliance, I would be happy to help with. Cheers Colin |
15th Jun 2010, 5:38 am | #14 |
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Re: GEC Reliance Phone
Please stay on topic.
Two posts relating to vans have been deleted.
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31st Aug 2010, 5:51 pm | #15 |
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Re: GEC Reliance Phone
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4th Oct 2010, 11:42 am | #16 |
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Re: GEC Reliance Phone
The E-Link phone was developed in-house by RTC engineers. It utilised DC leg signalling and was connected using three wires. By sending positive or negative signals down the wires, all ten digits from 0 to 9 could be selected. It was used on strowger and cross-bar PAX systems (made in Hungary) and was their first PB telephone, modelled on an existing GEC/Telecom phone range.
The three wires mean it needed additional cabling. It was only used on internal (PAX) systems. Thinking about this again, the E-Link was at least a step forward from the push-button phones on the market and available from Telecom. It did have some sort of electronic signalling. The push-button telephones available on the market were decadic, pressing a button sent a series of pulses in exactly the same way dial phones worked. Using them for long distance calls mean you had a long wait after keying in the numbers while the phone went through the the numbers and sent their pulses. |
10th Aug 2011, 12:30 am | #17 |
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Re: GEC Reliance Phone
Dear All
Is this the DC leg Signalling phone we are talking about ? I was a sponsored student at Marconi In New Parks, Leicester, and we used these phones for internal calls. I've always wondered what they were connected to. Does any one have anymore information on the CH100 crossbar PABX ? I can't find anything about it on the net. Hywel. |
27th Jul 2013, 12:03 pm | #18 | |
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Re: GEC Reliance Phone
Hello,
I worked for Reliance in the 1970's and early 1980's out of the small Colchester office which came under the Ponders End (Enfield) office. I first saw an E-link CH100 switch on an install in Sawston (Cambridgeshire). It was a 100 line single cab unit, I had to fit an old style IDF block in the bottom of the cab to support the old style Paxmaster console for single button "direct access" Yes, the phones were "three wire" a+b + an earth, the keypad placed diodes in different orders across the line depending on what digit was selected. The CH100 would also accept "rotary" standard dial phones as well! Reliance also did an E-link version of the SE50 extensible PAX and that could be arranged to accommodate a maximum of 250 lines. The Finals cabs were standard SE50 (5100) but the group cabs had electronics and uniselectors, the first digit dialled would cause the uniselector to hunt for a free selector in the associated finals cab and the the second two digits (stored) would be dial pulsed out to step the two motion selector. A bit retrograde if you ask me, great if the number called was 211 but waiting for paint to dry if it was 200!! There was also an E-link version of the 25 line uniselector PAX, they were quick! Quote:
Paul. |
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27th Jul 2013, 1:09 pm | #19 |
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Re: GEC Reliance Phone
The phone I have here used standard MF dialling and works ok as an SLT.
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23rd Jan 2014, 4:46 pm | #20 |
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Re: GEC Reliance Phone
In the 70’s I installed a number of CH100 systems. The cabinets came pre-built, were very heavy and required to be bolted to a wall. Cross connection of the cabinets and main frame were made by pre-formed cables and sockets plugged in the top of each unit.
The phones did use E link signalling which was polarity conscious. It was a quiet system,but once some office staff told me it sounds like cockroaches trying to climb out of a tin and refused to sit near it. The larger stowger pax systems used E link signalling which accessed a marker printed circuit board, which slotted into a frame in the rear of the cabinet. This converted the E link signalling to 20pps, twice the speed of a normal 2 motion selector. |