On 12/02/2022 15:24, Anna Noyd-Dryver wrote:
> <martin.coffee@round-midnight.org.uk> wrote:
>> On 11/02/2022 16:54, Anna Noyd-Dryver wrote:
>>> <martin.coffee@round-midnight.org.uk> wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> If anyone travels on a gWr IET could they confirm that Realtime Trains
>>>> is blocked on their wifi?
>>>>
>>>
>>> IIRC that's been fixed now, I'll check tomorrow if I remember.
>>>
>>
>> It wasn't on Tuesday but please check.
>>
>> It was quite important as some of the engineering works changes hadn't
>> made their way into the travel planners.
>>
>
> I can confirm that both RTT and RailMiles worked on gWr IET on-train WiFi
> for me today.
>
>

Excellent thanks.

On 11/02/2022 14:33, Graeme Wall wrote:
> I got a larger battery pack for my Motorola, with that fitted the phone
> lasted nearly 8 hours on standby!

We had a large MPT1324 "Batphone" for test purposes, used to get some
strange looks if you used somewhere in public because it looked like the
early mobile phones but it would often work where there was no mobile
coverage.

On 12/02/2022 10:55, Ken wrote:
> trying to use the payphone. I'd have thought it was obvious that the
> signal might drop as we entered the Severn Tunnel, but he just
> expected the phone to carry on as normal.

A friend used to sometimes listen to the early analogue mobile phones on
his scanner.

One day he heard someone who sounded like a classic young YUPPIE calling
someone who sound like his Grandfather to brag about his new mobile phone.

Y: Where do you think I am calling from?
G: Don't know.
Y: I am doing 70 mph down the M5
G: How
Y: I have a new mobile phone.
<slight pause>
G: So anyone can hear you
Y: No, its a phone.

Tweed <usenet.tweed@gmail.com> wrote:
> Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> wrote:
>> In message <su5rid$kss$1@dont-email.me>, at 14:24:13 on Fri, 11 Feb
>> 2022, Tweed <usenet.tweed@gmail.com> remarked:
>>
>>> I too have had a mobile phone right from the early days of ETACS analogue
>>> cellular - mine was a Nokia handset on Cellnet. I even made a call on the
>>> train out of St Pancras on that system. 50p per minute, which was quite a
>>> lot in 1988. Trains of that era also had mobile connected pay phones, that
>>> used a card that had a number of units loaded on them. The units were
>>> literally burnt off a plastic strip embedded in the card as they were used
>>> up.
>>
>> Isn't that the same technology as they were using in some land-based
>> phone boxes?
>
> Yes. Optical phone cards. More here
>
> http://www.telephonecardcollector.com/optical-cardphone-payphone.htm

There were two[0] generations of phone cards[1], one that chewed little
grooves in the card[2] and one that was more subtle. Some of them came
with exciting pictures on them. ISTR having a kingfisher on one.

[0] at least
[1] Or three if you counted the ones that let you make a payphone call and
charge it to your landline bill (only we didn’t call them landlines back
then).
[2] Alleged to be rechargeable using clear nail varnish.

Sam

--
The entity formerly known as Sam.Wilson@ed.ac.uk
Spit the dummy to reply

Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> wrote:
> In message <su3v0j$mcq$1@dont-email.me>, at 21:10:44 on Thu, 10 Feb
> 2022, NY <me@privacy.invalid> remarked:
>
>> Thinking about privacy, how about this for a staggering display of
>> unprofessionalism... My wife and I were on a bus on the Isle of Wight,
>> travelling from Newport to Cowes. Two men in smart suits got on: an
>> older, more senior one and and younger junior one. By their
>> conversation, it was evident that they were lawyers, discussing the
>> evidence in a case that they were taking part in. The older one, who
>> should have known better, then got his phone out and called his office
>> (probably in Southampton, since they got on the FastCat from Cowes to
>> Southampton), and he started mentioning client names as he was asking
>> his secretary to rearrange some of his meetings.
>>
>> As we got off, my wife leant towards to older man and said "Isn't
>> discussing evidence of an ongoing case in public classed as contempt of
>> court? Isn't mentioning client names in public classed as
>> unprofessional?". The two men looked utterly gobsmacked, then contrite
>> and then very, very worried, in rapid succession.
>
> I have a similar story, travelling on the Cambridge Cruiser in perhaps
> 2003, and the people on the adjacent table clearly being some sort of
> bankers/due-diligence auditors going to visit a prospective investment
> opportunity in Cambridge.
>
> While it was in the hi-tech (computing/telecoms even) sector, I couldn't
> quite recognise the organisation from the massive amount of detail they
> revealed. But if I had, I might well have got on the phone to them!

I’m sure I’ve mentioned before sitting opposite a minor media personality
on their way from London to Newcastle for an arts event, who ordered some
books over the phone while we travelled along. If I’d been quicker off the
mark with my pen I’d have had their complete credit card details and home
address written down.

They later wrote a newspaper column about the difficulties of managing your
money.

Sam

--
The entity formerly known as Sam.Wilson@ed.ac.uk
Spit the dummy to reply

On 11/02/2022 16:12, Tweed wrote:
> Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> wrote:
>> In message <su5rid$kss$1@dont-email.me>, at 14:24:13 on Fri, 11 Feb
>> 2022, Tweed <usenet.tweed@gmail.com> remarked:
>>
>>> I too have had a mobile phone right from the early days of ETACS analogue
>>> cellular - mine was a Nokia handset on Cellnet. I even made a call on the
>>> train out of St Pancras on that system. 50p per minute, which was quite a
>>> lot in 1988. Trains of that era also had mobile connected pay phones, that
>>> used a card that had a number of units loaded on them. The units were
>>> literally burnt off a plastic strip embedded in the card as they were used
>>> up.
>>
>> Isn't that the same technology as they were using in some land-based
>> phone boxes?
>
> Yes. Optical phone cards. More here
>
> http://www.telephonecardcollector.com/optical-cardphone-payphone.htm
>

I remember around the turn of the century collecting the cards for phone
boxes were very popular. I recall seeing one from the Falklands.

I also remember hearing that some of them could command a high price.

On 12/02/2022 03:24, Charles Ellson wrote:
> On Sat, 12 Feb 2022 00:28:41 +0000, "hounslow3@yahoo.co.uk"
> <hounslow3@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> On 11/02/2022 14:24, Tweed wrote:
>>> Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> wrote:
>>>> In message <su5get$6f8$4@dont-email.me>, at 11:14:37 on Fri, 11 Feb
>>>> 2022, Graeme Wall <rail@greywall.demon.co.uk> remarked:
>>>>> On 11/02/2022 10:48, Roland Perry wrote:
>>>>>> In message <su57ht$e3e$2@dont-email.me>, at 08:42:37 on Fri, 11 Feb
>>>>>> 2022, Graeme Wall <rail@greywall.demon.co.uk> remarked:
>>>>>>> On 10/02/2022 23:30, Clive Page wrote:
>>>>>>>> On 10/02/2022 15:20, Graeme Wall wrote:
>>>>>>>>> On 10/02/2022 12:51, Clive Page wrote:
>>>>>>>>>> I had assumed that the reason it was hard to get a mobile phone
>>>>>>>>>> signal in many railway carriages was that the designers had
>>>>>>>>>> deliberately set up a Faraday cage, though I couldn't work out why
>>>>>>>>>> the railway companies would want to do that - to ensure all
>>>>>>>>>> traffic went via their own Wifi service so as to snoop on it somehow?
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> But it seems likely to be a simple bit of incompetence - they
>>>>>>>>>> found a  way to reduce heat loss slightly and simply didn't care
>>>>>>>>>> about its effect on mobile phone signals.  Now there may be a solution:
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> https://techxplore.com/news/2022-02-windows-permeable-mobile-phone.html
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> I'd check the dates before you start bandying accusations of
>>>>>>>>> incompetence around.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>  Well mobile phones have been around since the early 1990s.  It is
>>>>>>>> interesting that carriages made in earlier decades always seem to
>>>>>>>> have windows that are transparent to mobile phone and GPS signals
>>>>>>>> even though  the need to do this cannot possibly have been foreseen.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> That's because the designers didn't care (in your words) about the
>>>>>>> heat loss through the windows.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>  The carriages that have radio-opaque signals are, in my
>>>>>>>> experience, ones  that were designed and built much more recently,
>>>>>>>> mostly well after the  advent of mobile phones.  Take the class 700
>>>>>>>> used on the Thameslink  network which were designed and built in
>>>>>>>> the last decade - it's hard to  believe that the designers were
>>>>>>>> unaware of the existence of mobile  phones.  I've no evidence that
>>>>>>>> mobile phone signals were deliberately  blocked, but it seems
>>>>>>>> likely to me that the designers simply didn't care.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> It wasn't a thing then and the main problem with mobiles on trains
>>>>>>> were the relatively few people who had them ringing people up just to
>>>>>>> boast they were on the train, allegedly.[1]
>>>>>> This probably arises from the common conversation: Wife rings
>>>>>> husband "Where are you!", Husband (just as much because it's the
>>>>>> first thing he thinks of, not because he's trying to be awkward) "I'm
>>>>>> on the train".
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> The mobile data revolution didn't get going for quite a long time.
>>>>>>> The iPhone[2] was launched in 2007.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> [1] Well known urban myth about some city-gent type rabbiting on
>>>>>>> (loudly) on his "mobile phone". An emergency occurs and he is asked
>>>>>>> to dial 999 and has to admit the phone is a fake.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> [2] Yes, for the Job-haters, I know it wasn't the first but it was
>>>>>>> arguably the one that launched the smart-phone revolution.
>>>>
>>>>>> Why still this obsession with data? Mobile phones for voice were
>>>>>> consumer products from 1993 (One2One), 1994 (Orange), and before then
>>>>>> widely used on Vodafone and Cellnet.
>>>>>
>>>>> I know, I had my first one in May 1993.[1] But for a good 10 years they
>>>>> were an expensive product and mainly used for business purposes.
>>>>
>>>> The tipping point was in 1994 when Cellnet launched PAYG. That was
>>>> because they'd run out of credit-worthy customers for contract phones,
>>>> which means already scraping quite low down in the consumer barrel.
>>>>
>>>> Actually, maybe not as low as you think, apparently about 50% of the
>>>> general public came into that category.
>>>>
>>>> One of my colleagues in 1995 had been central to that launch. Later, I
>>>> was in the team that launched Vodafone's PAYG in 1996.
>>>>
>>>> By the Millennium, Cellnet had ten million customers, and not doubt
>>>> there were a few more tens of million from the other networks.
>>>>
>>>> Orange's standard contract rate for most of the 90's was £25/month.
>>>>
>>>> Of course, just to be different, I'd had a Cellnet phone since 1988.
>>>> Entirely a personal gadget - my employer at the time would never have
>>>> contemplated paying for the equipment, and didn't even have an expenses
>>>> scheme which could have reimbursed the call costs. We were still banned
>>>> from making landline calls from the office in the morning, unless it was
>>>> vitally urgent, due to the higher rates pertaining at the time. (That's
>>>> voice calls, faxes were an exception).
>>>>
>>>>> [1] Before then I's been hiring one for the odd day when I needed one.
>>>>> Usually when working on news.
>>>>
>>>
>>> I too have had a mobile phone right from the early days of ETACS analogue
>>> cellular - mine was a Nokia handset on Cellnet. I even made a call on the
>>> train out of St Pancras on that system. 50p per minute, which was quite a
>>> lot in 1988. Trains of that era also had mobile connected pay phones, that
>>> used a card that had a number of units loaded on them. The units were
>>> literally burnt off a plastic strip embedded in the card as they were used
>>> up.
>>>
>> I thought that this was how many card-operated phone boxes worked.
>>
> Not for some years.

I was referring to the cards inserted into phones within phone boxes.

> Cardphones (I've only seen them in recent times at
> main railway stations or airports; you might now only get SIM cards at
> the latter)

Probably only the latter as I do not recall seeing cards for phoneboxes
in in about 15 years.

On 12/02/2022 07:42, Anna Noyd-Dryver wrote:
> Charles Ellson <charlesellson@btinternet.com> wrote:
>> On Sat, 12 Feb 2022 00:28:41 +0000, "hounslow3@yahoo.co.uk"
>> <hounslow3@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>>> On 11/02/2022 14:24, Tweed wrote:
>>>> Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> wrote:
>>>>> In message <su5get$6f8$4@dont-email.me>, at 11:14:37 on Fri, 11 Feb
>>>>> 2022, Graeme Wall <rail@greywall.demon.co.uk> remarked:
>>>>>> On 11/02/2022 10:48, Roland Perry wrote:
>>>>>>> In message <su57ht$e3e$2@dont-email.me>, at 08:42:37 on Fri, 11 Feb
>>>>>>> 2022, Graeme Wall <rail@greywall.demon.co.uk> remarked:
>>>>>>>> On 10/02/2022 23:30, Clive Page wrote:
>>>>>>>>> On 10/02/2022 15:20, Graeme Wall wrote:
>>>>>>>>>> On 10/02/2022 12:51, Clive Page wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>> I had assumed that the reason it was hard to get a mobile phone
>>>>>>>>>>> signal in many railway carriages was that the designers had
>>>>>>>>>>> deliberately set up a Faraday cage, though I couldn't work out why
>>>>>>>>>>> the railway companies would want to do that - to ensure all
>>>>>>>>>>> traffic went via their own Wifi service so as to snoop on it somehow?
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> But it seems likely to be a simple bit of incompetence - they
>>>>>>>>>>> found a  way to reduce heat loss slightly and simply didn't care
>>>>>>>>>>> about its effect on mobile phone signals.  Now there may be a solution:
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> https://techxplore.com/news/2022-02-windows-permeable-mobile-phone.html
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> I'd check the dates before you start bandying accusations of
>>>>>>>>>> incompetence around.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>  Well mobile phones have been around since the early 1990s.  It is
>>>>>>>>> interesting that carriages made in earlier decades always seem to
>>>>>>>>> have windows that are transparent to mobile phone and GPS signals
>>>>>>>>> even though  the need to do this cannot possibly have been foreseen.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> That's because the designers didn't care (in your words) about the
>>>>>>>> heat loss through the windows.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>  The carriages that have radio-opaque signals are, in my
>>>>>>>>> experience, ones  that were designed and built much more recently,
>>>>>>>>> mostly well after the  advent of mobile phones.  Take the class 700
>>>>>>>>> used on the Thameslink  network which were designed and built in
>>>>>>>>> the last decade - it's hard to  believe that the designers were
>>>>>>>>> unaware of the existence of mobile  phones.  I've no evidence that
>>>>>>>>> mobile phone signals were deliberately  blocked, but it seems
>>>>>>>>> likely to me that the designers simply didn't care.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> It wasn't a thing then and the main problem with mobiles on trains
>>>>>>>> were the relatively few people who had them ringing people up just to
>>>>>>>> boast they were on the train, allegedly.[1]
>>>>>>> This probably arises from the common conversation: Wife rings
>>>>>>> husband "Where are you!", Husband (just as much because it's the
>>>>>>> first thing he thinks of, not because he's trying to be awkward) "I'm
>>>>>>> on the train".
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> The mobile data revolution didn't get going for quite a long time.
>>>>>>>> The iPhone[2] was launched in 2007.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> [1] Well known urban myth about some city-gent type rabbiting on
>>>>>>>> (loudly) on his "mobile phone". An emergency occurs and he is asked
>>>>>>>> to dial 999 and has to admit the phone is a fake.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> [2] Yes, for the Job-haters, I know it wasn't the first but it was
>>>>>>>> arguably the one that launched the smart-phone revolution.
>>>>>
>>>>>>> Why still this obsession with data? Mobile phones for voice were
>>>>>>> consumer products from 1993 (One2One), 1994 (Orange), and before then
>>>>>>> widely used on Vodafone and Cellnet.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I know, I had my first one in May 1993.[1] But for a good 10 years they
>>>>>> were an expensive product and mainly used for business purposes.
>>>>>
>>>>> The tipping point was in 1994 when Cellnet launched PAYG. That was
>>>>> because they'd run out of credit-worthy customers for contract phones,
>>>>> which means already scraping quite low down in the consumer barrel.
>>>>>
>>>>> Actually, maybe not as low as you think, apparently about 50% of the
>>>>> general public came into that category.
>>>>>
>>>>> One of my colleagues in 1995 had been central to that launch. Later, I
>>>>> was in the team that launched Vodafone's PAYG in 1996.
>>>>>
>>>>> By the Millennium, Cellnet had ten million customers, and not doubt
>>>>> there were a few more tens of million from the other networks.
>>>>>
>>>>> Orange's standard contract rate for most of the 90's was £25/month.
>>>>>
>>>>> Of course, just to be different, I'd had a Cellnet phone since 1988.
>>>>> Entirely a personal gadget - my employer at the time would never have
>>>>> contemplated paying for the equipment, and didn't even have an expenses
>>>>> scheme which could have reimbursed the call costs. We were still banned
>>>>> from making landline calls from the office in the morning, unless it was
>>>>> vitally urgent, due to the higher rates pertaining at the time. (That's
>>>>> voice calls, faxes were an exception).
>>>>>
>>>>>> [1] Before then I's been hiring one for the odd day when I needed one.
>>>>>> Usually when working on news.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I too have had a mobile phone right from the early days of ETACS analogue
>>>> cellular - mine was a Nokia handset on Cellnet. I even made a call on the
>>>> train out of St Pancras on that system. 50p per minute, which was quite a
>>>> lot in 1988. Trains of that era also had mobile connected pay phones, that
>>>> used a card that had a number of units loaded on them. The units were
>>>> literally burnt off a plastic strip embedded in the card as they were used
>>>> up.
>>>>
>>> I thought that this was how many card-operated phone boxes worked.
>>>
>> Not for some years. Cardphones (I've only seen them in recent times at
>> main railway stations or airports; you might now only get SIM cards at
>> the latter) now use either or both of dedicated chip cards, ordinary
>> credit/debit cards; some might be combined with a phone taking cash.
>> Otherwise you can use pre-paid cards -
>> https://www.postoffice.co.uk/international-phonecards
>>
>
> When I used phone cards a lot in the 1990s, they appeared to be magstripe
> cards.
>
>
> Anna Noyd-Dryver
>

In some places in the world, however, the cards used chips.

On 12/02/2022 10:55, Ken wrote:
> On Fri, 11 Feb 2022 14:24:13 -0000 (UTC), Tweed
> <usenet.tweed@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> wrote:
>>> In message <su5get$6f8$4@dont-email.me>, at 11:14:37 on Fri, 11 Feb
>>> 2022, Graeme Wall <rail@greywall.demon.co.uk> remarked:
>>>> On 11/02/2022 10:48, Roland Perry wrote:
>>>>> In message <su57ht$e3e$2@dont-email.me>, at 08:42:37 on Fri, 11 Feb
>>>>> 2022, Graeme Wall <rail@greywall.demon.co.uk> remarked:
>>>>>> On 10/02/2022 23:30, Clive Page wrote:
>>>>>>> On 10/02/2022 15:20, Graeme Wall wrote:
>
>>>> [1] Before then I's been hiring one for the odd day when I needed one.
>>>> Usually when working on news.
>>>
>>
>> I too have had a mobile phone right from the early days of ETACS analogue
>> cellular - mine was a Nokia handset on Cellnet. I even made a call on the
>> train out of St Pancras on that system. 50p per minute, which was quite a
>> lot in 1988. Trains of that era also had mobile connected pay phones, that
>> used a card that had a number of units loaded on them. The units were
>> literally burnt off a plastic strip embedded in the card as they were used
>> up.
>
> The plastic strip thing was a BT Phonecard which could also be used in
> call boxes.
> I was quite a regular user of the payphones on the Stansted Express
> class 322 units from 1991. They, too, were 50p/minute but I'd feel an
> urge to catch up with friends when on my way home, especially after a
> particularly enjoyable lunch. It got expensive, especially if the
> trolley passed by.
> I thought they used credit cards rather than Phonecards but may well
> be wrong, or it may have varied by route.
> I was on a GWR service once waiting in the buffet queue for the
> mandatory bacon and tomato roll when a chap was getting very irate
> trying to use the payphone. I'd have thought it was obvious that the
> signal might drop as we entered the Severn Tunnel, but he just
> expected the phone to carry on as normal.

Metro-North trains had them for a short time, though the switch in the
United States to GSM from CDMA and the proliferation of mobile phones
rather quickly ended that.

On 12/02/2022 16:01, MB wrote:
> On 12/02/2022 10:55, Ken wrote:
>> trying to use the payphone. I'd have thought it was obvious that the
>> signal might drop as we entered the Severn Tunnel, but he just
>> expected the phone to carry on as normal.
>
> A friend used to sometimes listen to the early analogue mobile phones on
> his scanner.
>
> One day he heard someone who sounded like a classic young YUPPIE calling
> someone who sound like his Grandfather to brag about his new mobile phone.
>
> Y: Where do you think I am calling from?
> G: Don't know.
> Y: I am doing 70 mph down the M5
> G: How
> Y: I have a new mobile phone.
> <slight pause>
> G: So anyone can hear you
> Y: No, its a phone.
>
>
I believe that similar situation was happening with cordless phones in
the early 1980s.

hounslow3@yahoo.co.uk <hounslow3@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> On 12/02/2022 16:01, MB wrote:
>> On 12/02/2022 10:55, Ken wrote:
>>> trying to use the payphone. I'd have thought it was obvious that the
>>> signal might drop as we entered the Severn Tunnel, but he just
>>> expected the phone to carry on as normal.
>>
>> A friend used to sometimes listen to the early analogue mobile phones on
>> his scanner.
>>
>> One day he heard someone who sounded like a classic young YUPPIE calling
>> someone who sound like his Grandfather to brag about his new mobile phone.
>>
>> Y: Where do you think I am calling from?
>> G: Don't know.
>> Y: I am doing 70 mph down the M5
>> G: How
>> Y: I have a new mobile phone.
>> <slight pause>
>> G: So anyone can hear you
>> Y: No, its a phone.
>>
>>
> I believe that similar situation was happening with cordless phones in
> the early 1980s.
>

About the time that decent scanners became available from people like Tandy
with their Realistic brand or more up market things like the AOR 3000 one
of which lurks in the loft , must see if it still
works but there is little of interest to listen to now.
Highly illegal but I listened into one of our managers mobiles in analogue
days during salary negotiations while he spoke to them higher up and knew
exactly how much he was allowed to negotiate to if we refused to agree to
his supposedly “final” offer. Ended up saying ,look go back and tell them
we’ll settle for ( the figure I had heard on the phone conversation)’ he
did and we got it.
Told him in later years after he was made redundant how I happened to
arrive at the figure and he called me a bastard.
Baby monitors were another thing that people thought were private but some
had a quite a range,
many couples keep the infant in their bedroom at times and some would be
embarrassed if they knew their endeavours to produce the next one could
be heard by some laughing oiks in the pub nearby.

GH

In message <su94rp$19qc$1@gioia.aioe.org>, at 20:21:13 on Sat, 12 Feb
2022, "hounslow3@yahoo.co.uk" <hounslow3@yahoo.co.uk> remarked:

>>>> I too have had a mobile phone right from the early days of ETACS analogue
>>>> cellular - mine was a Nokia handset on Cellnet. I even made a call on the
>>>> train out of St Pancras on that system. 50p per minute, which was quite a
>>>> lot in 1988. Trains of that era also had mobile connected pay phones, that
>>>> used a card that had a number of units loaded on them. The units were
>>>> literally burnt off a plastic strip embedded in the card as they were used
>>>> up.
>>>
>>> Isn't that the same technology as they were using in some land-based
>>> phone boxes?
>> Yes. Optical phone cards. More here
>> http://www.telephonecardcollector.com/optical-cardphone-payphone.htm
>
>I remember around the turn of the century collecting the cards for
>phone boxes were very popular. I recall seeing one from the Falklands.
>
>I also remember hearing that some of them could command a high price.

One of my other hobbies is buying thing at local auctions, especially
house clearance stuff. One such was about hundred phonecards from all
over the world (I think it was probably £5, which is less than the
entry-fee for an item, so the seller would have received zero). But I
never did find a marketplace for them.
--
Roland Perry

In message <j6r41vF8o4gU1@mid.individual.net>, at 01:09:19 on Sun, 13
Feb 2022, Marland <gemehabal@btinternet.co.uk> remarked:

>Baby monitors were another thing that people thought were private but some
>had a quite a range,

More modern baby monitors, which are webcams, have a worldwide range :(
--
Roland Perry

On 13/02/2022 06:50, Roland Perry wrote:
> More modern baby monitors, which are webcams, have a worldwide range:(

The biggest risk with the old analogue baby monitors was the fact they
were nearly always in the parents' bedroom. One friend told me of
taking a neighbour to one side at a party and warning him that his
bedroom activities could be heard over a wide area by others with baby
alarms.

Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> wrote:
> In message <su94rp$19qc$1@gioia.aioe.org>, at 20:21:13 on Sat, 12 Feb
> 2022, "hounslow3@yahoo.co.uk" <hounslow3@yahoo.co.uk> remarked:
>

>> I remember around the turn of the century collecting the cards for
>> phone boxes were very popular. I recall seeing one from the Falklands.
>>
>> I also remember hearing that some of them could command a high price.
>
> One of my other hobbies is buying thing at local auctions, especially
> house clearance stuff. One such was about hundred phonecards from all
> over the world (I think it was probably £5, which is less than the
> entry-fee for an item, so the seller would have received zero). But I
> never did find a marketplace for them.

I suppose they were a product of their time as, certainly remember
reports of fairly high prices being paid for a particular card. Did BT
encourage it by having special editions in the way that the Post Office
does with stamps or was it just foreign administrations ?

Ebay is responsible for a lot of things becoming less valuable than say 20
years ago as it brings so much more of an item to the market.
I used to as a child thumb till it fell apart my Fathers cigarette card
collection based on the highway code because it several pictures of trams
in it.
< https://www.oldclassiccar.co.uk/safety-first.htm>

I mused at one time of getting a set for old times sake but though not
expensive in auction style places and bric a brac shops they were asking
more than I wanted to pay
now on ebay you can pick an album for the price of a beer as more are
available .

eg
<https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/185292085551?hash=item2b2444d92f:g:HkoAAOSwegxhQLUt>

Same with original Hornby Dublo trains , you can build the catalogue
cover trainset you never had very cheaply as so many lofts have been
emptied in recent years where grandads train set which never did displace
a playstation has now been put on sale. Most items command less value now
than 25 years ago, though there is the odd rare item that a collector will
pay more for, like a signal box with an original green roof when most of
them were orange.

GH

On 13/02/2022 10:02, Marland wrote:
> Same with original Hornby Dublo trains , you can build the catalogue
> cover trainset you never had very cheaply as so many lofts have been
> emptied in recent years where grandads train set which never did displace
> a playstation has now been put on sale. Most items command less value now
> than 25 years ago, though there is the odd rare item that a collector will
> pay more for, like a signal box with an original green roof when most of
> them were orange.

Mine's an orange one, needless to say.

--
Graeme Wall
This account not read.

Graeme Wall <rail@greywall.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> On 13/02/2022 10:02, Marland wrote:
>> Same with original Hornby Dublo trains , you can build the catalogue
>> cover trainset you never had very cheaply as so many lofts have been
>> emptied in recent years where grandads train set which never did displace
>> a playstation has now been put on sale. Most items command less value now
>> than 25 years ago, though there is the odd rare item that a collector will
>> pay more for, like a signal box with an original green roof when most of
>> them were orange.
>
> Mine's an orange one, needless to say.
>
several of those on ebay at the moment starting around .99p with only a
few hours to go,
The buy it now price seems to be about £15-20, in contrast a green roofed
one which the seller lists as rare is asking £100.00 for buy it now.

The ordinary ones are so common they are useful to cut and shut to make
variations, I did so on my garden railway to make room so they could
accommodate some electronic circuitry , used some stations as well . Most
can be acquired for a few pounds though if you have a diecast terminus set
from the original Hornby that is in reasonable condition can reach around
£500.
Being die cast aluminium they don’t rust or warp in the sun and take the
weight of a pheasant or cat standing on them. More valuable if they still
have original boxes but I went for imperfect or even slightly damaged
examples that dealers were glad to be shot of.

GH

On 13/02/2022 10:02, Marland wrote:
> Roland Perry <roland@perry.co.uk> wrote:
>> In message <su94rp$19qc$1@gioia.aioe.org>, at 20:21:13 on Sat, 12 Feb
>> 2022, "hounslow3@yahoo.co.uk" <hounslow3@yahoo.co.uk> remarked:
>>
>
>>> I remember around the turn of the century collecting the cards for
>>> phone boxes were very popular. I recall seeing one from the Falklands.
>>>
>>> I also remember hearing that some of them could command a high price.
>>
>> One of my other hobbies is buying thing at local auctions, especially
>> house clearance stuff. One such was about hundred phonecards from all
>> over the world (I think it was probably £5, which is less than the
>> entry-fee for an item, so the seller would have received zero). But I
>> never did find a marketplace for them.
>
> I suppose they were a product of their time as, certainly remember
> reports of fairly high prices being paid for a particular card.

Indeed. I don't know of anybody who makes them anymore, especially
considering that phoneboxes / payphones are less and less in the face of
burgeoning mobile connectivity.

Some countries like Iceland and Finland have all but done away with them.

> Ebay is responsible for a lot of things becoming less valuable than say 20
> years ago as it brings so much more of an item to the market.

That and the fact that these things are not interesting to most millennials.