Queen's Silver Jubilee Trimphone

[Richard1978]

I love that quote about flares!

Trimphones were in use even into the 1990s. It was possible to buy a Trimphone in the 1980s but most of them were rented from BT. Some of the Trimphones sold during the 1980s were non-standard colours and there was also a leather covered push button model.

The glow in the dark dials contained a glass tube filled with tritium. The radioactivity was too weak to be harmful to health but recovered dials scrapped by BT had to be treated as radioactive waste.

I think the endless news reports about Sellafield ultimately put the public off Trimphones, but by then the public looked at Trimphones the same way they looked at flares, Chopper bikes, Chrysler Avengers, and other 'relics' of the bygone decade. Ironically it was the time when many people were installing smoke alarms in their house that contained a minute piece of radioactive Americium.

I can remember most things from the 1970s were treated as naff in the 1980s, only to become popular again in the 1990s.

[Arran]

When did trimphones "disappear" from regular use? Early 1980s? They did seem to be the "flares" of telephone if you know what I mean.

I love that quote about flares!

Trimphones were in use even into the 1990s. It was possible to buy a Trimphone in the 1980s but most of them were rented from BT. Some of the Trimphones sold during the 1980s were non-standard colours and there was also a leather covered push button model.

The glow in the dark dials contained a glass tube filled with tritium. The radioactivity was too weak to be harmful to health but recovered dials scrapped by BT had to be treated as radioactive waste.

I think the endless news reports about Sellafield ultimately put the public off Trimphones, but by then the public looked at Trimphones the same way they looked at flares, Chopper bikes, Chrysler Avengers, and other 'relics' of the bygone decade. Ironically it was the time when many people were installing smoke alarms in their house that contained a minute piece of radioactive Americium.

[Richard1978]

When did trimphones "disappear" from regular use? Early 1980s? They did seem to be the "flares" of telephone if you know what I mean.

I guess people replacing their dial phones in the 1980s went for the newer push button phones.

From what I've read some early Trimphones had to be withdrawn because their glow in the dark dials were slightly radioactive & there was a risk they could be harmful to health. It's possible people didn't want them after this.

[George 1978]

When did trimphones "disappear" from regular use? Early 1980s? They did seem to be the "flares" of telephone if you know what I mean.

[Arran]

The pulse dialling press button Trimphone was officially referred to as the 766 telephone. It was first produced in 1976.

https://www.britishtelephones.com/t766.htm

The history of the original dial Trimphone - 712 / 722 telephone.

https://www.britishtelephones.com/hist722.htm

[albatros]

I heard ownered often had to use Blutak to stick them down to a tabletop as they were so light they would slide over the table when you tried to dial!

Also my Mum reckoned the ringer wasn't loud enough to be heard in another room compared to the usual bell, though some had an adjustable volume.

Correct on both counts!

[Richard1978]

I heard ownered often had to use Blutak to stick them down to a tabletop as they were so light they would slide over the table when you tried to dial!

Also my Mum reckoned the ringer wasn't loud enough to be heard in another room compared to the usual bell, though some had an adjustable volume.

[albatros]

A fine example but --- Trimphones were a BIG mistake! HORRIBLE things. Many innovative features but very impractical. Easily broken because they were so light, hard to use the rotary dial for the same reason, badly designed and manufactured microphone module that was well, rotten! and best of all they contained a radioactive gas to cause the dial to be luminous, the so called betalight. Eventually the GPO/BT had to recover literally millions of the luminous dial component and although pretty safe individually safe, when a huge number of the things, each containing a squirt of tritium gas was in one place an entirely different situation arose. Eventually the UKAEA (I think it was) had to extract the tritium and process it to make it safe. BUT in the right setting they did look smart!

[Semi42]

No doubt Liz would have been given one by BT
wonder if she ever used it

[Arran]

A limited edition press button Trimphone to commemorate the Queen's Silver Jubilee. This was the most modern British telephone in 1977, and is the pulse dialling model because most telephone exchanges did not work with DTMF, although a DTMF trimphone existed at the time for use with PABXs.



No telephones were manufactured to commemorate the Queen's Golden and Diamond Jubilees. Should a platinum plated iPhone be manufactured to commemorate the Queen's Platinum Jubilee?