So. Finally. After several iterations of fiddling our payphone is now working. It presumably dates from the 40s, but it could have been installed any time between the 30s and the 50s. Given the cable being cloth covered, not the (later?) curled plastic cable I’m assuming it is 1940s. It probably has date codes in it, had I thought to look whilst I was faffing around with it, but I didn’t.
It turns out that the diagram that was used by someone to indicate wiring had a connection in it which isn’t appropriate to my payphone. And I’d added that connection in (it is an original GPO Telephones diagram). I’m not sure in what setting that pin should be linked, but not in our setting.
Another kind soul posted the original GPO Telephones wiring diagram – which revealed to me the error in the other diagram (I say error, but it may be appropriate for some setting other than just connecting it up to the regular ‘phone network). Having carefully unwired it, tested the capacitor in it, and the hook mechanism, I wired it according to the diagram from the GPO and it just worked.
No mess, no fuss, just connected it and it functions exactly as intended. Pay-on-Answer for dialling out, and dialling in works just as it should too. I now need to dig out some more of the change for it as I’ve only 4d, which whilst it does seem to work, doesn’t give one the choice of payment options. I’ve also no idea how long a call can last on 4d. I’m assuming there’s some kind of limit to it, and that you have to pay more eventually (given that there’s options for penny, six-pence, and shillings – but I’ve not actually tried it to see how long I can talk on that first payment. Nor do I know what happens when you run out of payment. Do you just stop being able to talk to the other person or does it generate some kind of clicky/peep type noise? This site I think indicates that the 6d / 1s options were for operator type calls, and the single penny (well, actually 2d, 3d or 4d depending on at what point this phone was removed from use) was for local calls. But since I dialled my mobile from it, clearly it’s not restricted to local calls. Interesting).
Anyhow. I’m rather pleased with myself.
In other, other news, I got my GSI Outdoors Javagrind. Now, I’ve not thought of myself as having discerning enough tastebuds to tell the difference between my Krups blade-based coffee grinder and the Javagrind (or any other conical burr grinder). See, my ‘discerning’ over coffee has come in stages. First I stopped drinking ‘instant coffee’ except in exceptional circumstances, because it became apparent to me that ‘instant coffee’ is a hideous abomination with no right to call itself coffee. Then I became good enough at coffee drinking to realise that I had favourites among the supermarket coffee shop aisles. Then I started drinking Two Day Coffee, and realised that all other coffee is hideous acidic bitter crap. Well, not all other coffee; Batdorf and Bronson Coffee was also delicious. But in general, a lot of the coffee that I have when I’m out I find to be acrid nasty stuff best smothered by making it into a Latte, and perhaps adding a shot of some syrup or other, such that I can’t really taste the coffee that much.
But I don’t really think of myself as being terribly picky, nor as having enormously sensitive tastes in this arena (yes, you can all laugh now, given the aforementioned pickyness). But the javagrind presented a solution to a different problem: I tend, with the Krups grinder, to manage to sprinkle coffee liberally about the place. Whenever I take the top off it, a little shower of coffee would make good its escape, landing upon the counter or the surface thereabouts, leading to endless battles trying to not have coffee everywhere. With the javagrind, I can grind it straight into my cafetière, thus avoiding this whole transferring mess.
But I didn’t really expect much of a difference.
Okay, I didn’t really expect any difference.
I thought, I’ll have my coffee and it’ll taste much the same as it always does.
Apparently, I was wrong.
I am stunned at how different it tastes. As in, ‘good lord, that tastes entirely different’. It was very, very nice coffee. But now it’s very very very nice coffee. The few more bitter notes have disappeared pretty much entirely, it’s much smoother. I feel like an arse for rambling about it, but really, I’m quite startled that just grinding it more evenly would make so much of a difference.
Of course, you know what this means. I have to try cold brew coffee.
And that, my happy souls, is it for today.
