From Kevin O’Brien
Attached is a bit of Trivia from Wiki for you from the past about a second life for Australia’s first Intercontinental Telephone Exchange.
After OTC installed & commissioned the Ericsson ARM, the British Post Office purchased the Paddo exchange from OTC. It was installed in Wood Street, London and was named the “Wood Street Relief unit”.
I visited Wood Street in 1971 and asked if I could see the old Paddo exchange. There it was the same switch I used to work on in Sydney now “clacking” away on Atlantic circuits. To my surprise they had left the Australian labels on the test desk/rack key switches. I asked one of the guys working there at the time did he know the meaning of JTA and JFA.
He said he did not know what the letters stood for but he just knew them as one way outgoing/ incoming junctions.
We all had a chuckle after I informed them that the abbreviations stood for Junction from Australia JFA and junction to Australia JTA.
I don’t know if they ever changed the labels to Junction from/to England??? (JFE’s and JTE’s)
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