Kyle Lockwood
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☏
​TELEPHONE

​S H E N A N I G A N S
MY COLLECTION OF VINTAGE TELEPHONES

Welcome to...
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​☏ 
TELEPHONE
​S H E N A N I G A N S
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I have a bit of a soft-spot for vintage telephones. Actually, old school stuff in general.

However, I can't be bothered mucking about with classic cars, or renovating an old house, so I occasionally tinker with vintage phones instead. 

You see, both my parents worked in telephones, my father was out on the road as a telephone technician, and my mother worked as a technician at the local telephone exchange.
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My cousin and I using connected BPO 332 phones, Wellington NZ, July 1979
On deregulation of the New Zealand Post Office in the late 1980s, Dad became a telecommunications contractor.

In the 1990s, I joined his company as an assistant technician, for 5 years it was my school holiday job, I think he wanted me to take over the business.

Thank goodness I decided to work in architecture though, as there's not too many landlines around these days!

Below are some useful NZPO manuals for telephone technicians from a bygone era. I've put them below as a reference because, well, why not?


You can even download them on your telephone!  (there's a lot of data here, so please make sure you are on a wifi network first)
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Manual - Circuit Diagrams 1930s - 1970s

nzpo_telephone_engineering_notes_manual.pdf
File Size: 2410 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File

Manual - Closed Battery 1930s - 1970s

gpo_telephones_1-1_local___cb_telephones.pdf
File Size: 1098 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File

Dial Manual, 1958

bpo_tels_autodial_b5125.pdf
File Size: 834 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File

Dial Manual, 1938

bpo_tels_autodial_b5126.pdf
File Size: 1231 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File

History of the Telephone, 1937

telegraphy_and_telephony_historical_information.pdf
File Size: 123 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File

GPO Type 332 Assembly Plans, 1937-1950s

gpo_332_micro-telephone_assembly_plans.pdf
File Size: 3812 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File

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Exchanges - Step By Step

gpo_telephones_3-1_automatic_step_systems.pdf
File Size: 452 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File

Exchanges - Selectors

gpo_telephones_3-4_ordinary_final_selectors.pdf
File Size: 244 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File

Exchanges - Uniselectors

gpo_telephones_4-1_uniselector_mechanisms.pdf
File Size: 1025 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File

Exchanges - Clocks, 1962

bpo_at_e_ea_sheets_bpo_clocks.pdf
File Size: 2026 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File

Telephone Line Protection, 1950s

gpo_lines_3-4_protective_devices.pdf
File Size: 1394 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File

Calculagraph Toll Call Monitor, 1978

calculagraph_model_6_information.pdf
File Size: 280 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File


​With thanks to whoever uploaded these manuals to NZPO long ago.
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GPO Micro-Telephone 332 plans are from the excellent British Telephones site.

Telephone Talk, 1953

A short film about the telephone network in New Zealand in 1953.
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Telephone Exchanges

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My Mum used to work in the telephone exchanges, and I would visit her after school and sometimes socalise with the technicians in the break-room.
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To give you an idea of the thunderous noise produced by the mechanical equipment in the exchange there is a video below... (sound on please!)

Andy Wibble, a former NZPO technician explains Step By Step (SXS) exchanges;
 
"...(This is a foreign SXS) exchange, very similar to the ones I also worked in during the 70s. We used to be able ‘tune out’ the noise but it may explain my hearing loss in one ear maybe! Around a quarter way through this video are shown what looks like two motors with odd rotating cams on the front. These are ringing machines that generate all the tones and ringing current to make the telephone bells ring. The cams have raised bumps that operate relay springs to create the correct cadences for the various tones. This is all done electronically now of course!"

All of this technology originated in the 1920s (and was still being made as late as the 1970s) and it is now completely superseded by computer hardware, software and the fibre-optic cables of the internet

Today systems such as VIOP , WiFi Calling, and SIP, can be accessed wirelessly through your mobile telephone, to a point where telephone exchanges have largely been replaced by Data Centres.

With thanks to Wibbles World for the memories.
A noisy SXS telephone exchange, 1980s
Phone
One of the first short films by Sam Niel was a
educational ​comedy to do with Telephones.

​More telephone shenanigans, such as videos etc, coming soon to...


​☏ 
TELEPHONE

​S H E N A N I G A N S
Below is a PABX system I want to eventually build using all the phones in my collection...
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Note: I will not include the generator phones on extension 4 and 5, I will run these two as a seperate closed battery (CB) system as it would have been in the old days.
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telephone_shenanigans_pabx.pdf
File Size: 3382 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File

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