GPO / POT / BT Weatherphone

Scampton field telephone or not?

I bought this a few years ago from ebay, the chap selling it was a contractor working on the site, i cant find any information about its type or use?
all i know is what you see and that the company who made the phone got taken over in the early eighties. The seller told me that it came from a pole next to a hangar, but does anyone know what they used these for ?? ive never seen another like it, ps the handle is not original, also i have wired it to use and it now rings like a standard house phone....well i think its cool !

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PLEASE DONT POST....FOR MAKING PHONE CALLS!!

It's not a field telephone, it's a fixed telephone used commonly on the exterior of buildings and popular during the Cold War. I have one the same, I obtained it from a store at Uxbridge prior to demolition. I left another couple there to be honest as there were about 3, I just took the best one! Mine still has the original handle as far as I remember.

Here it is: www.pinterest.com/pin/169729479678154331/

It is possible that yours was replaced by a newer telephone that was UNITER compatible, going by the label?

I have to be honest and say that these are very common and there is no real value to them other than as a solid, classically designed item of interest. I wonder if I can get mine to work as a normal phone or if mine was removed because it was kaput?

I haven't seen the RAFSEE crest for a number of years (I worked there 78 - 87).

I know you don't want to know it was for making phone calls but sorry, it was. Its a weatherproof handset that would be connected to the station telephone system so you could ring the section and ask for help, report a fire, dial 222 and tell ATC of an aircraft safety problem etc.

Of course these days everyone has a mobile phone and they will use them despite all the areas where they shouldn't.

A future collectable perhaps? i have lots of ww2 field telephones but this one bought due the scampton link and the fact that they may have been something to do with the v-force? area of operations
i like it as a centerpiece in my study and of course i use it as a functional home phone lol it was easy to wire up to be honest,
prehps i will put up a shelf above it with a corgi vulcan on it lol
god im a geek !!
thanks for the feedback

As Al said the phone is nothing special. Some units had them on the side of buildings, although I only saw then at Cranwell and Barkston Heath.

Incidentally the inside of a UNITER phone was secret believe it or not. One of our Ops Officers at Leuchars got a bollocking for opening one up.

wow really thats great lol , its nice to have some info on the phone, i still believe in time it will pay me back, after all i used to buy gas masks in kilos!! and now they sell for anything up to £70 each! and as for the rest of the collection, well lets say it has paid for itself over the years
i do enjoy taking calls on it

St Athan was littered with these, enabled service personnel and contractors to be able to contact the tower and move around the various parts of the airfield. There is now a more modern replacement in a hard yellow casing, some are on collapsible poles near the thresholds, to allow gliders to taxi past them.

mawganmad;136143 wrote:

St Athan was littered with these, enabled service personnel and contractors to be able to contact the tower and move around the various parts of the airfield. There is now a more modern replacement in a hard yellow casing, some are on collapsible poles near the thresholds, to allow gliders to taxi past them.

We have one of the modern ones - it looks a bit like a yellow payphone but without the ability to accept coins - in the archive.

This was also BT item also. I know having installed many in a past life!