TV Forum Watch News and Information Board

[Chie]

Erm, okay, I think we've established that I'm wrong. again.

[Nick Harvey]

In 1985, provided you were good mates with the senior man at Vodafone, you could roam onto Cellnet when out of Vodafone coverage.

This was just for test purposes in readiness for international roaming which came in in 1986, provided the country you were goint to had the same mobile system on the same frequencies.

Most of the early systems outside the US were TACS on 900Mhz, so all was okay.

As a side note, for lovers of the very unique, TACS stands for Total Access Communications System, which actually wasn't very 'Total', so had to be replaced with ETACS, Extended Total Access Communications System.

[iSon]

Metropol isn't certainly a more well rounded place for having an explanation of 80s mobile phone roaming. You're the best Nick.

[steddenm]

(More interestingly in Athens was our mobiles which were provided by the Host Broadcaster, which all had a four digit number, so to call within the crew, we only had to dial those four digits rather than the long number the phones normally had.)

That'll either be classed as a subnetwork, like the railways use 761 (Orange) or 82/86 (Vodafone) to call internal numbers (eg 761100 will get you the Network Rail operator on Orange - £1+/min) or PTT (push-to-talk) where an individual handset would be given a four or five digit number (from 0000 to 9999/00000-99999) to allow you to call that handset without the need to have a signal.

Some UK phones had it, but didn't prove popular!

[Bail]

Irony much? http://www.tvforum.co.uk/forums/topic31615

[Beep]

Irony much? http://www.tvforum.co.uk/forums/topic31615

Which is ironic? TumbleWumble mentioning that that was an obscure request or my requesting it in the first place?

[Alexia]

Irony much? http://www.tvforum.co.uk/forums/topic31615

Which is ironic? TumbleWumble mentioning that that was an obscure request or my requesting it in the first place?

Well the former, obviously. A forum member asking where a television programme is not unusual, whatever the programme or whomever the member. Tumble Tower, whose obsession with Boogie Beebies and frequenting adult-child venues is well known, is the last person on earth you'd expect to say : "Why on Earth do you want to know where Tweenies was filmed considering its target audience? "

Perhaps he thinks you're too young to fully appreciate the social nuances of grown people prancing around in brightly coloured costumes....

[Bvsh Hovse]

(More interestingly in Athens was our mobiles which were provided by the Host Broadcaster, which all had a four digit number, so to call within the crew, we only had to dial those four digits rather than the long number the phones normally had.)

O2 call it Mobex (MOBile EXtension) and it's used by the BBC and other large organisations.

If you have an O2 BBC phone you can just dial the full extension number like a normal call, and usually the mobile gets the Mobex extension number based on the users landline extension number with an extra 7 in it - useful to try if you really need to get hold of someone and their mobile is not in the GAL. If you dial 100 you get PBX, which is also useful if you don't know someone's number. Caller ID works as you expect, with the extension number showing up on an incoming call. What doesn't work is SMS to Mobex numbers, so you still need to know the full mobile number to txt someone.

[Chie]

Someone has bravely put Christmas Day on the TVF calendar.

Wonder how long it takes the sadmins and sods to remove it this year.

[Bail]

Someone has bravely put Christmas Day on the TVF calendar.

Wonder how long it takes the sadmins and sods to remove it this year.

As per your request I've cancelled Christmas for you.

[Pete]

Someone has bravely put Christmas Day on the TVF calendar.

Wonder how long it takes the sadmins and sods to remove it this year.

As per you're request I've cancelled Christmas for you.

I always knew you were an employee of the PC Brigade