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Inside Our SX2000vs
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SX2000 Operators Console
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MSX Showing the CAPS (CPU)
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MSX showing the Fallback Switching
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Day One:
James bought a Mitel SX2000vs from an E-Bay shop well known to me as I have bought several items for my own collection. Although the vs (Very Small) is not exactly the correct unit for the bunker it is near enough to be put into service. We have the NEMP cabinet for the SX2000 already on display but it has nothing inside, we plan on putting the new system into the cabinet. Our cabinet is missing its filters so I will be looking out for them, also there should be a UPS and battery backup. Along with the switch James bought some old type MDF framework, this will be for the other bunker at Barnton Quarry.
I hired a van from my local rental company for my visit to Troywood, the Mitel and MDF was on the way so I arranged to drop in and pick them up on the way. I also took a few bits from my collection to the bunker and some test gear for the area I have set up in the BT room for repair and restoration. I left home around 04:30 and made it to the pick up by 09:00 which was not bad going considering the steady drive. I stopped off for some breakfast as there was a bit of spare time. After picking up the Mitel and frame the rest of the journey was hard going, lots of roadworks and slow moving traffic as well as a load of bad weather. I finally got to Troywood at about 14:45.
First thing was to check all the exhibits, the WB1400 in the ROC has stopped working due to a dead battery, I had made up 3 reproductions to but had left them at home so it will have to wait until my next visit. The teleprinter 23 in the main ops room had a jammed tape perforator which needed cleaning out; this involved removing the cover as it was seriously clogged up with paper. James had got a couple of strobe lights I plugged one into the WB1400 siren receiver so now it flashes when the siren is activated on the control point.
James also handed me a variac that we also got from E-Bay, this is just what we need in the BT room to avoid the smoke outs of old power supplies. I wired it to a mains plug and put a dual outlet on an extension fly lead on the other side. Works a treat!
The batteries for the master clock were just inside the BT room door so I put them onto the old battery rack and hooked them up to the clocks charger using temporary cabling. Once the pendulum was started every 30 seconds a relay was operated and the pendulum given a small push, this was ok but gradually the pendulum got slower and stopped. I think the push it is getting is not quite enough, I played around with some of the adjustments, and all of these were lose so I am not surprised I couldn’t get it right. I need to bring some feeler gauges and go through the manual next time I am here. Any way the batteries are doing what they should and the clock is very close to working. I have hooked up one slave clock and it steps every 30 seconds as it should.
I unloaded all the kit from the van to the stair well and with Peter’s help moved most of it to the BT room.
Day Two:
I was up early and had another stab at the clock; I managed to get it to run for several minutes which is an improvement but not there yet. I really hope we can get all the old clocks back to how they should be, all the cabling is still in place so once the clock runs it is possible, and there are lots of clocks in the storage containers.
Gavin came in today to help us with the SX2000, John helped get it into the BT room and Gavin made an initial inspection, the switch is very dirty inside, it was possibly located in a damp basement, it had been at Glenrothes council office when in service. Gavin cleaned up the power connections and we applied power, there was a fairly loud buzz at mains frequency, we suspect the power unit has an open circuit smoothing capacitor. So the switch is a no go for now, Gavin has a spare that he will bring to site to make sure the rest of the switch is serviceable, also I will take the power unit home for repair. The good news is that Gavin has offered to help us and he has loads of ideas for connecting up the bunker museums communications similar to my own.
We moved on to the MSX, we rigged up a terminal onto the console port of the Motorola processing unit, we looked in to taking the power supply off from the hard drive but this proved difficult without removing the unit from the rack. The hard drive has a clear front panel so the disk platters and heads can be seen, we are thinking of putting a Perspex front panel on to show it off! After hooking up power via the newly acquired variac and gradually turning up the voltage to around 140 volts we saw front panel LED’s flash, I decided to leave the voltage for a few minutes, well after about 3 minutes we got smoke from the upper power unit. On inspection a capacitor had cracked, another one for the pile of power units to fix. At least the capacitor didn’t bang or pop thanks to the variac. My plan for the MSX is slightly different, I checked with James and I will take an MSX back home where I have all the facilities of my workshop and a ton of spare components. Soon as I have one working I will bring it back and place the parts into the cabinet in the BT room.
During the day I added a scrambler phone to the commissioner’s office, it is an old black 300 type with a green handset. The Trend 800 and a Puma I brought up with me are now on their correct stands in the BT room display, the Trend 800 has a paper winder which was normal practice in cold war bunkers, at the moment the winder is just laid in place, I need to connect it and fix the mounting plate another time. There is now an Autex 100 with this display.
I went out to the container to find another MSX, the ones in the first container are either too far gone or possibly used for spares by the home office. The forth container is full to the top and the MSX’s are halfway down so very difficult to get at. Anyhow we moved quite a lot of stuff and now it is clear that the rack is the first of at least 5 more and they look in very good condition. While moving stuff I found there were piles of stacked Autex terminals, I mean loads of them, also printers, further into the container I found loads of Trend 800’s, Cipher Terminals, Trend Paper Winders, Autex Manuals. These were in quantities and there are more to see in the distance. To top it all I found enough Autex 100’s to rebuild a massive network I guess these must have been recovered to a central location and then ended up here. I managed to get the necessary parts out of a rack to take home for rebuild, I will need a Cipher or two and a Trend 800 or printer to connect
Addendum:
Gavin has been back to site with a new power supply for the SX2000, it is now in working condition, it just needs a working fan tray but this is no essential as the unit will not be handling anywhere near as many calls as it did in the ECN era. We will find a suitable location and wire up the switch to a patching field. Potentially we could connect some extension around the bunker for public use.
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