A very enjoyable weekend.

The weekend had an early start - Friday - as this was the actual 50th for the Proteus. As she was the first remotely operated station we decided to try and replicate this for her birthday. Although we hope eventually to build an actual replica of the Datofonic control system, an "equivalent" system was therefore built for this event.

The box on the wall contains a circuit that answers the phone after three rings, receives a controlling password and then operates up to 8 relays controlled by tones sent from a telephone. This is similar to the original Datafonic system which used a series of 1250hz tones for control. The Box is connected to the museum Strowger telephone exchange on extension 230 - the original Princetown number. In turn, the museum exchange connects through the museum digital exchange to the outside world.

All this meant that on Friday afternoon, Dave Sims at Western Power Distribution in Plymouth was able to dial in and start the Proteus automatically exactly 50 years on from the original first remote start.

On the Saturday, she was started a total of 8 times using the remote start system and ran faultlessly. She even had a birthday cake complete with candle which was shared by the afternoon visitors.

For the Saturday evening we had an open night to say thanks to all the locals and others who have supported us since we opened. We were not expecting many people given the near zero temperatures and were pleasantly surprised by the hundred and fifty people that came out to see us!

The Crossley HD3 from Tydd Gote in Hall 1 was running for the first time in public and ran well all day, a lot quieter than the Petter Atomic that used to thump away. She has now moved into Hall 2 to replace Roland's Petter S type and was also running well in her new home driving a Broomwade compressor.