1958 was my third year of the Trainee Technician
program.
This consisted of theoretical and practical work at the Technician's School in South Yarra, at the converted
Victorian-era mansion known as "Grong Grong" and Field Trainng.
That included design and construction of equipment used for Long Line Tramnsmission, basic
carrier systems, amplifiers, VF repeaters, frequency response tests, trunk test boards, modulation methods.
Our field training postings were now much longer, up to several weeks, and
included postings to Canterbury Telephone Exchange, which had been built in the earfy 1920s, which used Strowger switching
gear.
I did Subscriber's Maintenance, and Equipment Maintenance.
The Canterbury Complaints Switchboard was at this exchange, next to the Test Desk.
My second field training posting was to Ringwood Exchange, a brand new facility,
where I worked on the exchange equipment and subscribers' maintenance.
The exchange also had responsibility for management of faults and new service installations
at the small new unstaffed exchange at Warrandyte, then still a rural community!
