AIUI it uses mobile phone technology where available, I assume it uses
sat-phone technology when out over the Atlantic.

There's a service in the US called Airfone that uses slightly modified
cellular technology with ground stations that have antennae that point
up. If you remember when planes had pay phones, that's what they were.

It was a complete failure as pay phones, but remains somewhat viable
as a niche product with dedicated phones installed on private planes.
It's bounced around among owners but now belongs to LiveTV, whose main
business is providing TV feeds for those umpteen channel seatback
screens.

I believe I've seen sat phones on Lufthansa, but I doubt they get much
use. Maybe they share facilities with something the airline uses for
operations (cockpit to headquarters) so they can share costs.

R's,
John
--
Regards,
John Levine, , Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. http://jl.ly

On 04/04/2012 02:36, wrote:
On Apr 3, 6:01 pm,
wrote:

Returning to trains, the PATCO Lindenwold system, while automated,
always planned to have human backup readilly available in case the
machine failed. PATCO's motorman could operate the train in manual
mode if necessary, and centralized fare gate assistants could open
gates if needed.

I thought that PATCO's motormen already manually operated the train when
it was entering a terminal station.

I don't believe that is the case. The terminal is a station stop like
anywhere else. _After_ the train arrives is another story, if the
train goes out beyond the station to change ends.




Are there certain times when PATCO crews have to drive in manual, just
to stay in practice. There is such a requirment on the Central Line on
Sundays, IIRC.

Yes, that has always been PATCO policy.

They also drive manual in wet weather on slippery rail.


I remember riding the line in 1990 from Philadelphia. Just as the train
approached Lindenwold, the motorman switched to manual and brought the
train into the station on switching.

On 05/04/2012 07:59, Graeme Wall wrote:
On 05/04/2012 01:37, wrote:
On 04/04/2012 20:51, wrote:
On Wed, 4 Apr 2012 08:35:44 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

On Apr 4, 2:53 am, Graeme wrote:

They also used to have to have Candbury's vending machines, though
those
disappeared around 2006/07.

We forget that in the old days vending machines were strictly
mechanical and did not make change. Today, I can't imagine a machine
not taking dollar bills and not making change.

In Philadelphia and NYC, often near subway and train stations, there
was a popular restaurant chain, "Horn& Hardart", that used vending
machines known as the Automat. The machines were constantly refreshed
by crews working behind them. They had good wholesome food at a
reasonable price. Unfortunately, times and tastes changed and the
business shut down.
Fairly sure there was a place called Automat in Bellevue road
Southampton UK till around 1980 ish. No idea if the food was any good
though. Roughly between the Alexandra pub and that old bank that the
Police used to keep some low profile operations in .
G.Harman

They still have automats in the Netherlands, mind you? But they are not
the same as the Horn & Hardart ones that you saw in New York in the
1930s.

The Automat concept actually started in Berlin, IIRC.

Just before nationalisation, the GWR had a plan for an Automat fitted
buffet car. I've only seen artists impressions so I assume it never went
ahead.


Don't they or didn't they have such a thing on some SBB or SNCF trains?

On 05/04/2012 09:10, Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 01:35:19 on Thu, 5 Apr
2012, " remarked:
Does the UK have fast food chains similar (or the same) as the US'
McDonald's, Burger King, etc.?

McDonald's? What's that?

An entry in Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonald's

Wooow, that's something. We're looking forward to the day we get
television here in Britain.

On 05/04/2012 08:00, Graeme Wall wrote:
On 05/04/2012 01:39, wrote:
On 04/04/2012 16:26, wrote:
On Apr 3, 6:06 pm,
wrote:

London Underground stations used to have pay phones, though no
longer. I
can't understand why they would do that, however, because one cannot
get
a signal on their mobile phones on the tube lines.

They also used to have to have Candbury's vending machines, though
those
disappeared around 2006/07.

NYC subways still have pay phones. Mobile phones only work in
stations close to the surface, if even that. However, the MTA plans
to contract with vendors to install antenna and provide service. Some
people object to that since they don't want to be disturbed by cell
phone yackers. I certainly don't like cell phone users on trains.

Emirates aeroplanes are now equipped on certain routes with equipment
that allows in-flight mobile phone service.


BA have had built in mobile phones on some routes for several years now.


No, I mean that the Emirates aeroplanes themselves are fitted with
equipment that allows people to use their own mobile phones.

I am not referring to the phones on some planes that are fitted into the
back of the seat in front of you. You pop it out of its holding and
slide your credit through a strip on the side of a handset.

I've never seen any of those work, I have to say, even though I have
tried on a few occasions and even needed one once.

Also not cheap they are, I have to imagine.

On 05/04/2012 10:20, Graeme Wall wrote:
On 05/04/2012 10:04, Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 09:51:38 on Thu, 5 Apr
2012, Graeme Wall remarked:
Emirates aeroplanes are now equipped on certain routes with equipment
that allows in-flight mobile phone service.

BA have had built in mobile phones on some routes for several years
now.

There's a possibility for confusion between planes with seat-back (or
other) "built-in" phones which you can use, and being able to operate
your own mobile phone from within the plane.

Being pedantic they are both mobile phone services.

That's why I wanted to clarify the difference between the two cases, to
avoid confusion.

One is a phone service that's mobile because planes move around,

AIUI it uses mobile phone technology where available, I assume it uses
sat-phone technology when out over the Atlantic.

the
other allows use of a subscriber's regular GSM (mobile) phone.

Which uses exactly the same technology as the built-in phones. The
difference being that the planes' on-board systems (non-phone) have been
proved to be immune from interference by random models of domestic
mobile phones.

As an aside Varig allowed mobile phone use except during take off and
landing some years ago.


Yeah, but you can't really get a signal at such attitude, from what I
have seen.

On 05/04/2012 11:05, Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 10:20:28 on Thu, 5 Apr
2012, Graeme Wall remarked:
Emirates aeroplanes are now equipped on certain routes with
equipment
that allows in-flight mobile phone service.

BA have had built in mobile phones on some routes for several years
now.

There's a possibility for confusion between planes with seat-back (or
other) "built-in" phones which you can use, and being able to operate
your own mobile phone from within the plane.

Being pedantic they are both mobile phone services.

That's why I wanted to clarify the difference between the two cases, to
avoid confusion.

One is a phone service that's mobile because planes move around,

AIUI it uses mobile phone technology where available, I assume it uses
sat-phone technology when out over the Atlantic.

I think you'll find it's satellite everywhere. Apart from anything else
it's prohibited (in USA for example) to make cellular calls from an
aircraft, and the transnational billing issues would be a nightmare.


If I understand you correctly, your mobile on such flights hooks up with
a provider that the airline has contracted with. You will pay quite
handsomely for that service in any event, I'm sure.

On 05/04/2012 14:23, Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 07:15:25 on
Thu, 5 Apr 2012, Robert Neville remarked:
"The aircraft, an Airbus A340, is fitted with a system which
stops mobiles from interfering with a plane's electronics.

Well, sort of. The aircraft is equiped with a pico cell (miniature
cell tower)
that instructs the phones to reduce their power output to the minimum.
There's
no active interference protection.

The interference protection is achieved by that action of "reducing
power". Which is caused by the picocell. It's just different ways of
saying the same thing.

What kind of mobile phone system is used in Niue, BTW? I remember
reading that it is quite different from your standard provider.

On 04/04/2012 02:09, Charles Ellson wrote:
On Wed, 04 Apr 2012 01:22:53 +0100, "
wrote:

On 01/04/2012 18:19, wrote:
On Apr 1, 6:53 am,
wrote:

Also, there are new countries in the NANP.
The newest one that I can think of is St. Maarten, which joined NANP on
30 September with the 721 area code, from its previous country code of +599.
I know that Guam, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands
switched their respective country codes to area codes in the late 90s.
Has there been or anybody else as of late will there be? Does St. Pierre
et Miquelon plan to eventually join NANP? (I can't see that happening,
to be honest.)-

Originally Mexico was to have an area code, but that was changed to a
separate country code. Not sure why, it would seem to make sense to
make it part of NANP.


Are any plans like that in the offing?

As to St. Pierre and Miquelon, there are so few people living there it
probably doesn't matter.

Yet it did matter that it had a separate country code of +508. But
that's the French, I suppose.


It is amazing that there is a French colony
embedded within the US and Canada. Very few people know about it.

The last French colony in that part of the world.

ITYF hasn't been a colony for many years but is now a partly
self-governing overseas territory of the Republic of France (having
chosen that option in 1958 according to Wonkypaedia), also making it
part of the European Union.

It is an Overseas Territory, IIRC. I anachronistically used the term
colony in my previous post.

"Graeme Wall" wrote

Just before nationalisation, the GWR had a plan for an Automat fitted
buffet car. I've only seen artists impressions so I assume it never went
ahead.

In the early 1960s an SK had a compartment stripped and fitted with some
vending machines, billed as an 'Automatic Buffet Car'. For a time it was
rostered on the Cambrian Coast Express between Aberystwyth and Shrewsbury
(where it was detached from the up and attached to the down train). I don't
think it had much success, and it certainly didn't last.

Peter