I recently scored three dell thin clients for under £8 each.

Spec is similar ballpark to a raspberry pi, but with an x86 chipset and so much cheaper!

One of them will become a standalone #speakingClock system for the #DeanForestRailway #strowger #telephoneExchange (replacing a #museum exhibit that went offline in ~ 2019)

One of them will probably become a remote control host for my #icom #ic7300

The last one is likely to be kept as a spare for now, unless I can come up with another project.

I play weekend #telephoneEngineer at the #DeanForestRailway #steam #railway - it’s all fun and games until a #steamEngine starts a small lineside fire directly on top of the #telephone cable!

This damage took out phones at 3 stations, and the token machine used by our #signalBoxes

Luckily it wasn’t too hard to get to, and we had a suitable length of scrap cable we could joint in as a temporary fix

Jointing grease filled cable in the sunshine… there are worse ways to spend a Saturday!

Another day at the #DeanForestRailway working on the #UAX13 #strowger #ElectroMechanical #TelephoneExchange … today I was changing the strapping on the vertical marking bank (VMB) for some group selectors.

The VMB is used when the selector moves vertically, to allow/deny access to certain levels.

Here I converted a selector that allowed (89)xx to allow (34567890)xx

This changes it from serving our museum demo phones to be suitable for use as an incoming selector from a distant exchange.