This telephone junction box brought back memories of my time working in Force Exchange (mentioned previously). The main task at the time (1963) was to replace the multitude of 20 circuit cables emanating from the Exchange, the hub of the data/telephone system for the British Forces at that time. Similar junction boxes were scattered throughout Hong Kong Island and what was the New Territories marked by three letter indicators starting with H for the Island and K for Kowloon areas. New cables had already been laid between all these junction boxes previously, leaving the connection of them to my time there. It was a massive task, sending line parties out to the next in-line junction box and then, for those stalwarts (all HK resident signalers), they would be advised by those in Force, based on their cabling records, to change the new twenty pairs of wires to the cable pairs exiting to the next junction. All depended on the accuracy of the card records!! Yes, they were at times wrong, so after advising those using the various data circuits that a brief cut would be made changing over, things tended to go wrong when, out of the blue, a customer would complain we had cut him off. Head scratching was then in order. Where on earth was this customer's circuit in the hundreds of circuits passing through the exchange? Sometimes the Line Party would ask if they could use another junction box. We in Control would argue no, but usually we gave them the option. Stumbling on one of the said boxes while traveling in the New Territories I spotted one perched high up on what looked like a vast cliff, the result of a land slide. Tended to take the Line Party at their word after that.
Goodness knows what happened to all that effort, and whether any of the line party members are still around.
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Force Exchange
This telephone junction box brought back memories of my time working in Force Exchange (mentioned previously). The main task at the time (1963) was to replace the multitude of 20 circuit cables emanating from the Exchange, the hub of the data/telephone system for the British Forces at that time. Similar junction boxes were scattered throughout Hong Kong Island and what was the New Territories marked by three letter indicators starting with H for the Island and K for Kowloon areas. New cables had already been laid between all these junction boxes previously, leaving the connection of them to my time there. It was a massive task, sending line parties out to the next in-line junction box and then, for those stalwarts (all HK resident signalers), they would be advised by those in Force, based on their cabling records, to change the new twenty pairs of wires to the cable pairs exiting to the next junction. All depended on the accuracy of the card records!! Yes, they were at times wrong, so after advising those using the various data circuits that a brief cut would be made changing over, things tended to go wrong when, out of the blue, a customer would complain we had cut him off. Head scratching was then in order. Where on earth was this customer's circuit in the hundreds of circuits passing through the exchange? Sometimes the Line Party would ask if they could use another junction box. We in Control would argue no, but usually we gave them the option. Stumbling on one of the said boxes while traveling in the New Territories I spotted one perched high up on what looked like a vast cliff, the result of a land slide. Tended to take the Line Party at their word after that.
Goodness knows what happened to all that effort, and whether any of the line party members are still around.