Posted by Alan Hakim on June 06, 2002 at 17:40:58 from 212.137.253.137 user awhakim.
In Reply to: Re: Roaring Donkey posted by Peter H on June 06, 2002 at 14:00:56:
I have a rotary dial phone beside me as I write. I admit I use it more for incoming than outgoing calls, and use the downstairs phones to make calls, but I have kept it because it's a much more elegant design than many of the new push-button versions.
As for the joggling of the bracket, everybody did it in the days of manual exchanges. Whether it was effective depended on the exchange equipment. For those with a lamp or a revolving disc/flap (which disappeared from view when the line was out of use) there was a definite reaction to joggling. As Peter says, if you joggled too fast, you might reduce the effectiveness of the flapping, but I have seen it work. There was also another type of indicator, mainly on small private switchboards, where a flap fell open when the line became active, and stayed down until manually clipped up again by the operator. This only reacted to the line ringing, and would be impervious to joggling.
Exchanges were normally local in scope in the 1930s. Beckfoot's exchange would probably be no further away than Rio. Since that was a name given to the town by the S&As, does that imply that Rio's real name was Fellside? It wasn't until the introduction of long-distance dialling that rural exchanges were consolidated into major centres - and the numbers given prefixes to make them of standard length. It has not yet been completed, and curiously, one place that has still got non-standard numbers is the Bowness area - Fellside exchange.