Rack at Plessey - selector E2 appears to have a fault 4000 type selectors.
Plessey Northampton - removal of exchange.
The old exchange went to the Dart Valley Railway along with the B units, if it was ever used again is not known, but I was informed some years ago parts had surfaced on the Welsh Highland Railway at Portmadoc.
The exchange room was a little decrepit so later the equipment was physically moved sideways, the room partitioned and the vacated area renovated, into this area another exchange was installed.
from Turntable October 6th 1984
Two redundant AC9 racks from the main Post Office exchange in Winchester, which we had to cut down from 10ft 6 ins, were used to mount selector and relay set shelves from the Plessey exchange.
One rack was used for the line finders and selectors and the other for relay sets.
A ringer rack from the BBC TV Centre with 2 type 45 ringers completed the installation.
Again 50 extensions were provided, 4000 type selectors were used initially but were later replaced with 2000 type, a type I was more familiar with.
100 outlet 10 position bank multiples were used, one shelf of 1st selectors, another for second and in-coming selectors and a third for final selectors. Four level 0 and 1 relay sets from UAXs were used as the junction relay sets to Ropley accessing four bothway junctions via junction hunters.
The extensions and junctions were transferred from the old to the new exchange and the old equipment scrapped. A Power Plant 223 with end cell switching was used until replaced by a PP2040.
The Mogul 9th May 1985
From the top
Miscellaneous relays
Final selectors - 5 for ordinary calls, 4 for i/c call transfer and 1 for TKO
5 second selectors, 4 incoming junctions from Ropley
Miscellaneous relay sets
10 1st selectors
10 line finders
50 line circuits
MDF at the rear, all soldered connections.
A fourth rack, from Itchen Abbas UAX13, was added later for assorted relay sets, a planned 1 plus 4 carrier system and a shelf for a TRT284 call sender.
Fitted next to the rack shown above.
Later the full width relay set rack was replaced by a narrower one with 5 shelf positions, by that time a lot of the existing relay sets were no longer being used and the extra floor space created was used to instal a 62 type carrier rack, another carrier project that came to nothing.
At this time the Ropley junctions were changed to 2 direct circuits for Ropley traffic and 2 for tandem calls, if both the direct circuits were busy Ropley calls could overflow onto the tandem circuits.
2-10 PBX final selectors were used here and at Ropley.
Selector rack on the right and the ex BBC ringer rack on the left.
Two sets of gas combination standby batteries were housed externally in 2 glass fibre cabinets, these had replaced one set of lead acid cells located in the building, later a Power Plant 2040 was installed.
Disposal of the ex BBC ringer rack 2004 Phil Mousley (OIC IT) on the left.
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