ABOUT ME
Hello Welcome to my little bit of "web space"
My name is Kevin
I have been involved in the telecommunications industry all my working life- joining the GPO as an apprentice at 16 then qualifying as a Strowger exchange technician 3 years later. Circumstance (the onset of System X) led to me becoming an external field engineer in the mid 80's -initially as a "SUB Apps" man on faults but over the next 25 years graduating ? onto small systems, installation/provision, jointing, cabling, pole climbing Special Fault Investigation, ISDN, ADSL and everything else they threw at me ! . I then spent a year and a bit in a "control" environment running a couple of projects, designed to reduce the fault rate in the copper network .
I am now "retired" from the field and work for BT Openreach as a Precision Test controller/allocator for both copper and optical fibre circuits
I hold an amateur radio licence and callsign and used to enjoy restoring and collecting valved Bakelite radios, upon recovering a 1950's Bakelite 300style phone one day I, thought it would look nice on the shelf adjacent to the radio collection (now all gone). At about this time ( early 90's) the late Alan Hobbs G8GOJ introduced me to the THG -the Telecommunications Heritage Group and that was the start .
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I am married to the lovely Jacqueline who puts up with my "anorakness" on condition I do not complain about the amount of cats we have in the house (not necessarily real ones !)
I have an interest in all things electrical/electronic ,computers and cars , with particular emphasis on the heritage side of things .
Things change however and over the years my interest in certain aspects of the telecommunications heritage hobby has waned .So much that I have now disposed of over half of my collection especially the space consuming strowger telephone exchange and PAX s
More recently I find myself getting very interested in stationary engines
and attending the Steam and Country shows
How things change !!
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A bit of relaxation in the garden does not go amiss either !
I hope you enjoy your stay .