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GPO Keysender No 5, M05 LA FHR 71/1, 1935/71 Updated
The facts that I am sure of are that it is a mechanical
push-button dialler, designed to be used in place of an old style rotary
telephone dial. It has GPO markings on the underside so we can take it as read
it’s meant for the British phone system, and that’s confirmed by the
typewriter-style key labelling, which uses the same font and colouring as the
printing on a standard rotary dial. The date is pure conjecture and I’m plumping for the late 1950s to
late 60s, mainly because of the transparent window on the top. I have every
reason to suppose it’s original and it’s made of a thin flexible plastic that
hasn’t coloured or become brittle with age. Older plastics of this type tend to
yellow. It also has to be pre 1969 as that was when the word ‘General’ was
dropped and the GPO became Post Office Telephones.
At first I thought it was an accessibility device, possibly
designed for those who had problems using a rotary dial, but there’s more to it
than that. It has what amounts to a simple mechanical memory, so you can enter
a complete phone number by pressing the keys, which it then proceeds to dial in
sequence. The memory device is the furthermost disc in the photograph. It’s
peppered by tiny pins that rise up when a key is pressed. Pressing a key also
winds a simple clockwork mechanism that spins the wheel, and the raised pins
operate a small switch; when the dial has made one rotation the pins are reset.
My best guess is that’s it was designed for exchange operators – to save wrist
strain -- but I’m happy to be put right. I have scoured the usual GPO and
telephone collector websites but drawn a complete blank. Some other markings on the underside might provide a clue. There’s
a small white label, about 2cm long, marked ’M05 LA FHR 71/1 GPO FD1 BS. The
serial number stamped into the cast iron base is 51936, and what looks like a
GPO Approval Stamp is also marked ‘Post Office FOI Appd 272. The label on the
top says’ Important. To operate steadily depress keys to full extent of
travel’. What Happened To It? Push button phones were first introduced in the UK in the early
1970s, but these used the now universal ‘tone dialling’ system, based on DTMF (Dual
Tone Multi Frequency) tones. This is a purely mechanical ‘pulse’ dialling
system and the complexity must have made it really expensive to manufacture,
which adds to my suspicion it was not meant for general distribution. By the
early 1980s DTMF push button phones had become the norm and gadgets like this
would have become redundant. In case you are wondering how I came by it, I found it at an
antiques fair in early 2009. The guy who was selling it had found in a lot of
junk form a house clearance. He was no expert but knew it was rare enough to be
asking £50 for it, but it being a cold, wet day he seemed happy to haggle and
finally accepted £35, but I like him I have absolutely no idea what it’s
worth.
My sincere thanks to Sam Hallas for filling me in on this unusual device. It's called a Keysender No 5 and was first introduced in 1935 and according to the markings this one was refurbished 1971. If you are interested there's more information at http://www.britishtelephones.com//keysend5.htm GIZMO GUIDE First seen:
1935 Original Price
unknown but probably expensive Value Today?
£50, who knows? Features:
Mechanical typewriter style mechanical pulse dialler Power req. Human powered Weight: 2.9kg Dimensions:
120 x 180 x 160mm (wdh) Made in: England Hen's Teeth (10 rarest):
9 Candlestick Telephone, c1975
As best I can make out, and judging by the markings on the base
and inside it was made in the late 1970s, and neatly illustrates an interesting
fact about this style of phone, namely that it has never been out of production
since it first appeared in around 1911. Candlestick phones were still in widespread use until the 1950s,
though the GPO -- as was -- stopped issuing them to subscribers in the 1940s,
replacing them with Bakelite models like the classic 162, and the familiar
Series 300. Original candlesticks are easy to spot. They are very basic; no
works to speak of, apart from the microphone (transmitter) and earpiece
(receiver), dial and internal switch, everything else was contained in an external
box or ‘bellset’. They were also very heavy – thanks to a cast-iron base -- and
pretty austere, no exposed brass, an any colour you like as long as it’s black
finish, and certainly no plastic. The other give-aways on a modern repro are
the curly cord (the originals were braided cotton covered, and they usually
have some sort of internal sounder, instead of a bell. And if the dial has push
buttons instead of finger holes, that’s another good clue… Most repros are actually pretty awful, and often really tacky,
which is why I was drawn to this one. It’s a remarkably faithful copy; many of
the parts look as though they are patterned on the original. I believe there was a company in the north
of England a few years ago making them from surplus components sold by the GPO,
though I doubt if anything on this one is original. The build quality, internal
circuitry and neatness of the wring of this one is definitely up to old GPO/BT
standards, though, but without a maker’s name it’s difficult to be precise about
its provenance. What Happened to it? I doubt that candlestick phones have ever been out of favour,
apart from brief periods, like the late 1960s, when everything had to be modern
and teccy. However, I suspect that most of those who ever bought one switched
back to a more convention design pretty quickly. The problem is they are not
very convenient; you need two hands to use it, and because they are so heavy
and difficult to carry phone calls made on them tend to be quite short…
Nevertheless, they are a lot of fun, and very decorative, though I am
occasionally appalled when I come across genuine candlesticks that have been
converted into table lamps… For the record I paid £12 for this one at a recent antiques fair.
It was in pretty good shape and only needed a quick polish and rub down with
Brasso to get it shining again, and being fitted with a standard BT plug and
the requisite circuitry it works a treat on a modern line. As a matter of
interest even genuine candlesticks can be converted to work on a BT line,
though be warned, it is frowned up. Modern repros sell from around £25 though
you can pay up to £150, for the more authentic versions. If you hanker after
the real deal there’s quite a few of them around, on ebay, at antiques fairs
and in shops. Expect to pay between £100 and
£150 for one in fair condition, substantially more if it comes with an
original bellset. GIZMO GUIDE First seen:
1911? Original Price Originals rented, modern repros, £25 - £150 Value Today?
Originals £100 upwards, repros £25 upwards Features:
Rotary dial, sounder, adjustable transmitter, hand-held receiver Power req.
Powered by telephone line, Weight:
2.1kg Dimensions:
140 x 330 mm Made in:
England Hen's Teeth (10 rarest): 4
Dictograph Telephone System Master Console 1950s?
Unlike today’s fancy phone systems there’s no need to read the instructions. If you want to talk to a department or someone in the company important enough to have one just flip their switch, press the Ring lever and wait for them to answer. The user of this particular one must have been fairly senior as he (or she) had lines to most major departments, from the Chief Accountant to the Board Room, and a mysterious Mr Jaye, who was obviously a big enough cheese to have his own name label on this phone. Inside there is as you would expect, rows of tough looking
mechanical switches and terminals and beautiful wiring that makes it clear that
no expense was spared in its construction. What Happened To It? The obvious disadvantage to internal phone systems like this one
was that they had no connection to the outside world. This meant that anyone
who needed one would have to have this great lump, as well as an ordinary phone
on their desk. Dictograph went on to produce integrated telephones and PAX
systems but they were ugly beasts and by the time of Dictograph’s takeover in
the 60s smaller, neater, more functional and almost certainly cheaper office
phones were being produced by many rival companies. I bought this one, along with a couple of others smaller and
larger variants many, many years ago from one of my favourite haunts, a
fantastic army surplus shop called Jobstocks, in Walthamstow; alas now long
gone. I can’t remember how much I paid for them but it would have only been a
few pounds. They were in a pretty dirty state but nothing a bit of furniture
polish couldn’t fix. I have no doubt that it still works – there’s very little
to go wrong – but without a wiring diagram it would be difficult (but not
impossible) to get it up and running again. It’s hard to say what it is
worth now, I’m guessing anywhere from £5 to £50. Sadly it’s not much use for
anything these days but it looks great! GIZMO GUIDE First seen:
1918 Original Price £? Value Today? £25 Features:
Multi-station PAX internal phone system, Bakelite handset and cradle, indicator
lights, internal buzzer Power req.
n/a Weight: 3.8kg Dimensions: 300 x 185 x 235 mm Made in:
England Hen's Teeth (10 rarest): 4
GPO Series 300 Telephone 1965?
electronic widgets from the 1960s I built up a sizeable
collection of old telephones and this one, a GPO Series 300
model was one of the very first. It’s doubly special for me because it’s the
exact same model that we had at home when I were a lad. The 300 Series is the
classic black Bakelite home table phone of the 50s and 60s, though the design,
by the Swedish company Ericsson, actually dates back to the 1930s. They were
produced for the GPO in their millions by the likes of ATC, Ericsson, GEC and
Siemens and other companies around the world. Many survive but beware of modern
repros and fakes. The real thing is easy to spot. They weigh a ton and if you
unscrew the earpiece cover on the heavy handset there should be a metal diaphragm,
held in place by a pair of magnets, (rather than a removable insert). There are plenty of other
signs to look out for; the base should be metal, the rotary dial has a very
distinctive ‘growl’ (later repros usually sound a bit tinny). Ideally this
will have an ABC123 fingerplate though later models only had numerals
following the switch to all digit phone numbers in the early 70s. Braided
cotton covered cables are another good sign but not essential as they wore
out and were replaced with plastic covered curly leads. Given their age chips
and scuff marks on the Bakelite body and chips on the mouthpiece are not
unusual, so immaculate examples should be treated with some suspicion. Give it
a shake and you should hear a tinkle from the bell. This one is actually a 314
variant as it has Bell On and Bell Off buttons, a Call Exchange button (sadly
blanked off), plus a slide out drawer with a transparent sleeve for phone
numbers. Old phones like these can
be more than just ornaments though. I have converted many of them to operate on
a modern phone line, it’s actually quite simple and the sound of a proper
ringing bell and the heavily clipped sound from the earpiece bring the memories
flooding back but it behoves me to point out that plugging one in to a BT line
is almost certainly frowned upon.. What Happened To
It? 300 series phones were
still being used in homes up and down the country well into the 1970s but they
were killed off by the smoother, plastic-cased 700 series. This was available
in a range of colours and fitted in better with the décor of the time. I bought
this one in the late 1970s from an old junk shop and it only cost a pound or
two. The shopkeeper had dozens of them and I kick myself for not snapping up
the lot, they would be worth a small fortune now. I still hear stories of dumps
and landfills full of old phones like these, but do not despair, there’s lots
of them around and they often turn up at boot sales for a few pounds and a lot have
been imported from places like India and Australia where they are still quite
common. Plenty of companies are selling
refurbished models, sometimes for silly prices, so beware. A decent fixer-upper
shouldn’t cost you more than £20 to £30. Coloured models are quite rare; though,
and rightly command much higher prices. Red, white (ivory) and green models are
highly prized but beware of black models that have been given a blow over with
a can of spray paint. Removing the earpiece cover will usually show if it’s a
fake. Don’t worry too much about
the dull faded look of old Bakelite, it is really easy to restore to a mirror
finish using Brasso metal polish. For best results I suggest that you dismantle
the phone and remove the dial, otherwise you won’t be able to get into all of
the nooks and crannies. The dials are sometimes gummed up and sluggish but a
touch of 3-in-One oil usually gets them going again. If you want to have a go
at a fully working restoration job there are plenty of collector’s sites on the
web with circuit diagrams, conversion plans and even spare parts. GIZMO GUIDE
First seen: 1938Original
Price
Rented from GPO Value Today? £25 to £100 Features:
Rotary dial, mechanical bell, bell
on/off and Call Exchange buttons Power req. Powered by phone line Weight: 2.5kg Dimensions: 230 x 190 x 135mm Made in: Britain Hen’s Teeth (10 rarest): 4
GPO Telephone Type 746F, 1978
The design dates back to the late 1950s; it was known as the ‘Modern Phone’ as it replaced what was considered then the rather dowdy (but now highly sought after) black Bakelite phones. Collecting 700’s can be a real geek-feast as there were so many different types and variations. This one is almost certainly a type 746F (the F suffix denotes an all-number or ‘figure’ dial). If you want to know more about this and other phones from the 60s, 70s and 80s pop along to the Telephonesuk website . I can’t remember exactly where this one came from, it was almost certainly more than twenty years ago and it would have been found in a skip or on a rubbish pile. I suspect that the only reason I picked it up was because it was red, which was slightly unusual as most type 700 phones at the time were cream or brown coloured. I definitely wouldn’t have paid any money for it; phones like this were literally thrown away in their millions when the GPO became BT and people were allowed to choose their phones.
Like all phones of this era it was built to last and this particular one still works. The tough plastic case usually scrubs up well – picking off paint spots is usually the most difficult part of the clean up job -- and they can be easily adapted to work on the BT network, though I’m fairly sure this is frowned upon. What Happened to It? Thousands of 700s are still kicking around in flea markets and car boot sales. They’re not as common as they used to be but I still see one every now and again selling for just a quid or two. If you see one in good condition, especially a green or red model, grab it quick. The retro styling never goes out of fashion and they are becoming increasingly collectable so their value can only go up.. GIZMO GUIDE First seen: 1959 Original Price £n/a Value Today? £25 Features: rotary dial, twin bells Power req. n/a line powered Weight: 1.25kg Dimensions: 215 x 140 x 120mm Made in: UK Hen’s Teeth (10 rarest): 3 RAC 'ET' Emergency Telephone, 1990
The idea was it would only be used for emergencies, to call the
RAC, police fire or ambulance services -- it even
has its own dedicated RAC and 999 'speed dial' buttons on the handset. It could also
be used for making regular phone calls but extortionate call charges meant that most of them spent short and uneventful lives in the boots of
cars. As you can see it comes in three parts, the main transceiver unit,
with its hinged 'rubber duck' aerial housed in a black anodised extruded
aluminium case, a chunky rechargeable NiCad battery pack, and the handset. The
whole caboodle fits inside a snazzy padded blue shoulder bag. In case the
battery was flat, which would probably be the case if it had been stored in the
boot for any length of time, it could be powered up instantly using the
supplied cigar lighter socket adaptor. What Happened to it? It is unlikely that many ETs were sold as by the early 1990s the
analogue ETACs cellphone system, which it uses, was being phased out and
replaced by cheaper, smaller and smarter digital mobile phones. The first GSM
networks came on stream in 1993 and within a couple of years the cost of mobile
phones, and call charges had fallen to the point where it had become a mass market
product, so there was no longer any need for specialised cellphones like this one. Since most ETs led undemanding lives I'm guessing that those that survived will be in pretty good condition. I found this one on a Brighton market stall and it cost me £10. It does power up but it's totally useless for anything other than a doorstop as the analogue cellphone networks closed down years ago, but if you see one going cheap grab it, it has
all the hallmarks of a future collectible. GIZMO GUIDE First seen:
1990 Original Price
£100 Value Today?
£10 Features:
Analogue ETACS portable mobile phone with LCD display, RAC and 999 speed
dial buttons, rubber dick antenna Power req.
12 volt rechargeable nicad battery or car battery Weight: 2.5kg Dimensions:
(carry case) 285 x 180 x 80mm Made in: UK Hen's Teeth (10 rarest): 7
Shira
WT106 Walkie Talkies 1970
However,
what made these little gadgets so enticing was the fact that they were illegal
and it wasn't until the mid 1980s that the UK Government deemed it acceptable
for the British public to own radio transmitters without having to sit an
examination. In
truth 'toy' walkie talkies like these put out just a few milliwatts of RF
power, barely enough power to interfere with anything more than a metre or two
away, and the range was typically about 25 metres, or about as far s you could
shout, but that did nothing to diminish the magic of being able to talk to your
mates, some distance away, without wires (or string). Walkie-talkies,
like this pair of Shiras, which almost certainly date from the 1970s, all
followed a fairly similar pattern with a simple 3 or 4 transistor circuit that
cleverly combined the functions of a short wave (27Mhz) transmitter and
receiver, audio amplifier and Morse-code buzzer. Later models operated on the
49MHz VHF band, which had been vacated by 405-line TV. Despite the phone-like appearance the loudspeaker also doubled up as the microphone and since they used a single channel only one person could speak at a time, using the large PTT (press to talk) button on the side. The only other controls are an on/off volume knob and the Morse code button, which appears to work by putting the AF circuitry into a feedback mode. A 9-section telescopic aerial that extends to a little under 1 metre aerial emerges from the top of the case and these tended to last about five minutes, and there's a wrist strap on the side. As you can see there's a useful Morse Code crib-sheet on the front and a wacky fake screen showing a waveform; the designers definitely knew which buttons to push to excite their target market... What Happened to it?By the late 1970s proper 27MHz Citizens Band (CB) ‘transceivers’ started appearing in the shops and some of the more powerful ones were capable of communicating over several miles. Later, when CB was finally legalised in the UK more upmarket models became available and within the past 5 years the market has been flooded with powerful little PMRS/GMRS two-way radios, so walkie-talkies have never gone away but as good as they are nowadays we just take the technology for granted and the magic simply isn’t there any more. Back in their heyday
hundreds, possibly thousands of cheapie designs like these were produced, many
of them themed or tied into popular TV shows of the day (Mission Impossible,
Thunderbirds, The Man Form U.N.C.L.E) and I’m guessing these are very
collectible, especially if they’re still in their original box. I paid a fiver
for these Shiras, and there’s certainly no shortage of them on ebay but probably
not for much longer. Shortlist ones that still work, with complete aerials, and
if they’re boxed and come with the original instructions, so much the
better. GIZMO GUIDE
First seen: 1970? Original
Price
£5 (is) Value Today? £5 Features:
Press to talk, on/off volume, Code
button, telescopic aerial, wrist strap Weight: 0.3kg Dimensions: 195 x 63 x 50mm Made in: Hong Kong Hen’s Teeth (10 rarest): 3
Maxcom MCP-200 Cordless Telephone 1979
These devices used analogue
technology and were little more than fancy walkie-talkies. There was no
security and if two or more people had one in a street it would be forever
warbling as it intercepted the calls from the neighbour’s cordless phone. They
were also pretty big, as you can see from this example, made by Maxcom, who
incidentally were one of the first Korean companies to market electronic goods
in the UK. It’s also worth noting that at the time these phones were illegal
because they worked on the 1.7MHz and 49MHz frequency bands, which had been
approved in the US, but were allocated to other users in the UK. I can’t recall
who or what they were but a loophole in the law allowed these phones to be
sold, but not used. The Maxcom was fairly
typical of the breed; the hefty handset contained a set of rechargeable batteries,
that gave you a walk/talk time of around 10 minutes (well, maybe a little
longer). There were no frills, just a last number recall, and an interesting
‘call’ facility. This somewhat questionable feature consisted of a button on
the base station, which when pressed made the handset bleep. The box proudly
proclaims it employs full duplex operation, which basically means both parties
can talk at the same time. Range was typically about 50 metres or a little
further than you could shout, so it wasn’t all bad. This particular example is
showing its age, and the years spent on a sunny windowsill, with the once
cream-coloured plastic having turned an interesting two-tone yellow and brown. What Happened To It? It wasn’t until cordless phones
went digital, and were legalised, in the late 1980s, that they started to make
any sort of sense. Early models like this one were great, so long as no-one
else living nearby had one. I doubt that many had survived, they weren’t very
popular because of the interference and legality issues, moreover they were
unreliable and easily damaged when they fell out of your pocket – which they
tended to do with monotonous regularity because they were so large. It’s the
sort of thing you’ll see now and again at a boot sale, and if you see a good
one, particularly if it still has its box, grab it, definitely a future
collectible.
GIZMO GUIDE
First seen: 1979 Original
Price
£80 Value Today? £5 Features:
full duplex operation, tone/pulse
dialling, automatic last number redial, remote call function, belt clip Power req. mains/rechargeable Weight: (handset) 400g Dimensions: (base unit) 230 x 180 x 80 mm, (handset) 210 x 60 x 50 mm Made in: Korea Hen’s Teeth (10 rarest): 7
Motorola 8500X ‘Brick’ Mobile Phone, 1986
No fancy gadgets or colour
displays here, just a simple red LED readout showing the number and battery
state. The controls are also very straightforward, though ironically there’s
more buttons that you would find on a modern mobile. For those concerned about
the health hazards or using a cellphone you might be interested to know that
the 8500 and it’s ilk had a pretty poor reputation and were responsible for
numerous injuries, including several rather nasty accidents to user’s eyes,
caused by a sharp poke with the rubber duck aerial… What Happened To It? You had to be there to
appreciate just how potent a symbol of wealth and power a mobile phone could
be. Early adopters often drew small crowds when they were used in public but it
quickly became a joke. Phone owner’s image also suffered at the hands of Delboy
‘Only Fools and Horses’ Trotter, who favoured this particular model. Eventually prices fell and
smaller pocket sized models started to appear and now everyone has one but the
high price meant that old phones like this one were produced in relatively
small numbers. The 8500 was discontinued in 1987 and many were returned for
replacement and they would have been scrapped. Survivors are rare, examples in
good condition, with the original box, case and charger can easily fetch
several hundred pounds in ebay. This one has been fairly well used and is
probably only worth £30 or so, but prices are rising steadily. The analogue networks were
switched off five years ago so they are practically useless, though a couple of
specialist companies can strip out the old analogue guts and replace them with
the innards of a modern phone, even s, it’s not the sort of thing you would
want to carry around with you for very long. If you want to go for the retro
look then one of the first generation digital phones, like the classic Motorola
flip-lid Micro TAC might be a better bet. GIZMO GUIDE First seen: 1986 Original Price £1200 Value Today? £20 - £50 Features: Analogue operation, last number recall and store, address book, 1-hour talk time Power req. Proprietary 7.5 volt nicad pack Weight: 800g Dimensions: 200 x 80 x 45 (very approx) Made in: USA Rarity: 5 (1 = common, 10 = Hen's teeth) Telephone 280, the 'Buttinski' or 'Butts', 1960
The two most obvious
features are the fact that it’s encased in thick rubber, and the small dial,
set into the back of the mouthpiece. The small red button on the side works
like a handset switch. Press it to pick up the line, and give it a twist to
keep the line open. These phones were mostly made by Plessey and went into
service in the late 1950s, this one is thought to date from the early 1960s, it
came from a car boot sale a few years ago and cost 50 pence. Judging by the
condition of the rubber case it has led a hard life, nevertheless, it does
still work. What happened to it?Telephone 280 was phased out in the early 1980s and replaced by more compact, mostly yellow coloured electronic test phones. Obviously the new phones are designed for use with newer digital exchanges and clearly do a much better job, but if you want a phone, that can double up as a rubber mallet, survive a drop from the top of a telegraph pole and like as not, still be working in another 100 years time, look no further than the 280. Quite a few of them were made and since they are almost indestructible they do turn up on ebay from time to time. Prices vary but if you are very lucky you might pick up a good one for less than a tenner.
GIZMO GUIDE
First seen: 1962 Original
Price
£ probably quite a bit... Value Today? £10 - £20 Features:
Mechanical
numbered dial, push to talk and lock switch Power req. n/a Weight: 700g Dimensions: 270 x 100 x 80 (very approx) Made in: England Rarity: 5 (1 = common, 10 = Hen's teeth)
* The 280 had several affectionate nicknames including 'Buttinski' and 'Butts' and depending who you talk to this refers to the way it was used by engineers to track and trace calls, or 'butt' into phone calls. 'Butts' is also used in the US and is a reference to the way (or area) it hangs from the lineman's tool holster or 'butt' belt. GPO Trimphone 1965
The ringer or ‘warbler’ is
really distinctive and you can hear a sample by clicking HERE. The sound was
produced by a simple transistorised oscillator, one of the first ‘electronic’
ringers and a major technical leap as up until that time virtually all phones
used electromechanical bells. The illuminated dial is the subject of some
controversy because it relies on a thin almost circular glass tube, filled with
radioactive Tritium gas,
which reacts with a What Happened to it? The Trimphone never really
went away, though obviously by today’s standards it is incredibly basic.
Although it will work on a modern phone line it is obviously very limited in
what it can do, but don’t let that worry you, it is a working example of
British 1960s technology and design at its very best, a great conversation
piece – in all senses of the word – and as time goes by a functional
collectable that can only appreciate in value.
There’s lots more about the Trimphone Here GIZMO GUIDE
First seen: 1965 Original Price n/a, supplied as part of phone rental contract Value Today? £50 Features:
‘Warbler’
ringer, ringer volume control, radioactive glowing dial, rotary or push-button
dial Power req. powered by phone line Weight: 800g Dimensions: 210 x 100 x 115 (very approx) Made in: UK Rarity: 6 (1 = common, 10 = Hen's teeth) Realistic TRC-209 1979
This one is a 1979 vintage
model, one of a pair smuggled in from the US. They were purchased from
Realistic -- Tandy in the UK -- for around £60, a fair sum back then! It’s very
sturdily built and has a tough leather carry case. It’s a real handful, with
top-mounted controls for channel change, on/off volume and Squelch. There’s
also a power/battery meter and sockets for an external mike and speaker. The
PTT (push-to-talk) switch is on the left and sockets on the right for external
antenna, power and charger. The bulge in the 1.5 metre long telescopic antenna
is a ‘centre load’, a small coil that improves the aerial’s efficiency. What happened to it?Those who can remember back to the early days of CB will tell you that it died the day it was legalised; quite simply all the fun went out of it. The UK’s FM system was a poor alternative, the range was little further than you could shout and the equipment was bland and expensive. AM CB went further underground and lived on for a few years, indeed there are still a few die-hards out there but what really killed CB was the idiots and kids who jammed the airwaves and by the late 1980s the mobile phone had arrived. Still, it was a good laugh while it lasted. 10-10 good buddy… GIZMO GUIDE
First seen: 1979 Original Price £30 Value Today? £50 Features: 27MHz AM, 40 channels, 5-watt RF output, battery/power meter, centre load antenna, volume, Squelch, Hi/Lo output, external mike, antenna speaker sockets, leather carry case Power req. 9 x AA rechargeable/alkaline, 7 x AA zinc carbon (2 dummy batteries supplied) Weight: 1kg (ex batteries) Dimensions: 260 x 65 x 80mm (very approx) Made in: Japan Rarity: 8 (1 = common, 10 = Hen's teeth)
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I know what it is, I know what it does and I even know who it was
made for, but apart from that this rather odd looking object is a bit of a
mystery (not any longer, 
As you can see from the second photograph it is an amazingly
complicated piece of kit, it’s built like a clock, a real piece of precision
engineering. The base is cast iron; the keys and their mechanism look as though
they came straight out of an old mechanical typewriter. The top cover is made
from thin steel and the connections; via standard braided cotton covered cables
are routed through a small Paxolin terminal block on the underside. 
As you may know I collect old telephones and I have several
genuine ‘candlestick’ models, the oldest dating from around 1920, so you may be
wondering what this fine looking specimen is doing on a website devoted to late
20th century gadgets? Simple, it’s a late 20th century gadget.
This chunky-looking apparatus is the sort of thing you would have
had on your desk if you were a middle-management office worker up until the mid
1960s. The American company Dictograph was one of the largest manufacturers of
private automatic exchange (PAX) and internal telephone systems, or intercoms,
from just before the First World War to the late sixties, when rivals Telephone
Rentals bought out the company.
Long before I became
interested in 
The Type 700 telephone is a true classic and for those who grew up in the sixties and seventies it was probably the only
phone you would ever see, thanks to the GPO’s near monopoly on the supply and
rental of telephones in the UK.
Back in the late 80s and early 1990's cellular mobile phones were still
relatively expensive luxury items and mostly used for business communications.
However, throughout their relatively short history they have proven their worth
as a means of summoning help in an emergency and this clearly struck a chord
with the UK's second largest roadside assistance organisation, the Royal
Automobile Club or RAC. In collaboration with Motorola they came up with the
'ET' or Emergency Telephone, a mobile, or rather portable phone package that
sold for the then astonishingly cheap price of £100.
Back in
the 1960s the closest most kids ever got to interpersonal two-way communications was a pair
of baked bean tins and a length of string (ask your Granddad for details...),
so when cheap walkie-talkies like these first appeared they quickly became the
must-have gadget for a generation of boys (girls tended not to be interested in
such things).
First generation cordless
phones were a lot of fun and I well remember spending my lunch hours walking up
and down London’s Tottenham Court Road, seeing if I could log onto the many demo
models in the shops, to make expensive phone calls.
Incredible as it may seem
now less this mighty phone was once at the cutting edge of mobile
telecommunications and you had to be filthy rich (or a builder) to own one. The
8500 was a second-generation analogue phone, following hard on the heels of the
first ‘transportable’ models, built inside a small attaché case, introduced in
the early 1980s. It was nothing sort of revolutionary and the small (by 80s
standards) detachable battery pack gave an unheard of 1-hour talk time.
This weird and wacky looking telephone is
definitely not the sort of thing you would have found in the average home or
office in the sixties and seventies. It's a Telephone 280 or GPO lineman’s test phone, sometimes known as
the Buttinski or Butts*.
The Trimphone or Telephone
No. 722, to give it its official name is a real sixties icon. It first appeared
in 1965 and was the brainchild of GPO designer Martyn Rowlands. ‘Trim’ is
actually an acronym for Tone Ringer Illuminated Model, two features which make
this still very stylish phone stand out.
phosphor coating to produce a constant greenish blue glow.
The actual amount of radioactivity is very low – less than the background
radiation in some areas -- but the phone was eventually withdrawn following
safety concerns. Several colour variants were produced and later a push-button
version was introduced; both types were produced in very large numbers – more
than 1.6 million were made, before it was withdrawn in 1981, and in spite of
them being recalled by BT you can still find them selling in antique shops and
car boot sales for between £10 to £20. Refurbished ‘as new’ models, fitted with
BT sockets sell for around £50.
This Realistic TRC-209 has
the unusual distinction of being an illegal gadget... If you haven’t already
guessed it’s a Citizen’s Band radio. However, It’s not one of those namby-pamby
FM jobbies begrudgingly legalised by the UK Government in 1981, but a genuine
hairy-chested 27MHz AM hand-portable from the US with 40-channels and a healthy
5-watts of output power.