Telephones... then and now

[ultrarunner]

My 12 year old nephew and 10 year old niece were visiting Grandma and were very interested in her rotary dial telephone... they had never seen one and asked how does it work... both kids have Apple 6S phones.

So I showed them and they made a call and were fascinated it still works...

Then I tricked them by calling the number and both jumped so high I thought they were going to hit the ceiling... the old Western Electric bell ringer startled them...

They then asked why Grandma didn't have a cell phone and Grandma said she wouldn't know how to use it... too many things to push... she has had the same phone and number 50 years.

 

[mjarrels]

We had a party line for many years. My dad grew up with oak hand cranks and operators. The only way to see a phone booth now is in old movies and TV. I use to have an old push button that would ring very loud, I called it my matlock phone. Dang wife tossed it out.

mark

 

[turnkey4099]

I grew uop with the hand crank party line system. Got a newsletter from a reunion outfit saying that the automatic dialer (doing away with the central operator) wasn't replaced there until in the 50s.

 

[ultrarunner]

When I bought my 1922 home from the original owner it was basically all 1922... high leg stove, kitchen and bath all untouched... and it had a real working telephone that you hold with your your left hand to speak and the receiver with your right... just like Mayberry... still have it tucked away somewhere.

The experience with the kids got me thinking just how fast things change...

Dad has been gone almost 17 years now... if he were to see their home today nothing has changed... rotary phone, Zenith Console TV same applicances... to the kids it must look like a museum.

The 12 year old has helped so many with Apple 6S issues... he knows that phone, apps, etc inside out...

At 12 I was only allowed to use the phone for emergencies and a few seconds when long distance...

The thought of a 12 year old walking around with a $600 phone and a $60 service plan boggles the mind...

 

[mjarrels]

When my son was young, I bought a six pack of coca-cola. He tried and tried to twist the cap off. These bottles required a church key to open and he had never seen a bottle opener or use one before. I bought a new chain saw last year and the chain needed to be tighted... read the manuel, no, picked up his smart phone for direction... yep, the information was there.

mark

 

[Thomas]

Party line...some youngster might think that's standing in line night club instead of telephone.

 

[k0ua]

Ah, yes the 500 and 554 series telephones. Remember them well. They are a mechanical marvel, the governor in them is quite complex. They were still available and we installed some of them when I was a puppy telephone man. Although the 2500 series (touchtone) were much more common by then. In a lot of ways the touch tone dials were quite a bit simpler. I adjusted many of the old BA 20 series ringers also. It was all so long ago...

 

[ultrarunner]

Never knew my old phone is called a candlestick phone...

Identifying Popular Western Electric Telephones in One Step

Yep... the 500 is what Mom has and a 554 at the cabin.

I guess there will come a day when rotary will no longer work?

 

[k0ua]

Never knew my old phone is called a candlestick phone...

Identifying Popular Western Electric Telephones in One Step

Yep... the 500 is what Mom has and a 554 at the cabin.

I guess there will come a day when rotary will no longer work?

Well, the real question will be how long will land lines for residential service exist? All of the station cards in CO's still accept rotary pulses, as far as I know. Of course I have been out of the loop for a while now.

 

[crackerjack222]

We had a "candelstick" phone until I was in high school. We kids were not allow to use it. When the rotary dial phones were introduced, the phone co conducted a school assembly to explain how to use it. Our prefix was to be DRake. That caused a few groans. The phone rep said we should be glad it was not "GOose". I have a rotary pay phone in my game room. I know it still has a dial tone, but I have not tried to dial out in years.

 

[Qapla]

When we first moved here (my parents bought the place in 1960 - now it belongs to my Brother and me) we could only get a party line. At that time we started with an 8 party line but within months the "new" 4 party line became available.

I got my own phone in 1970 - when 2 party lines were then available. I was one party and my parents were the other party. That gave us a private line. Not long after that, due to his job, my Brother HAD to get a private line and the phone company installed the first private line in our area.

In the mid-70's they discontinued the four party lines and a couple years later they ended the two party lines when they added "touch tone" to the system.

For the next several years the my phone (the one in my room since we no longer had party lines) was TT - it wasn't until after I was married and gone before my parent finally got a TT phone to replace the rotary dial - and this was because the phone company took back "their" phones and told us we needed to buy our own phone.

Now - we don't even have a "home phone" since we all have cell phones.

 

[ultrarunner]

I remember the letters... Dads office with KEllogg and home with SOuthgate... I guess I'm showing my age.

Mom had a friend that was AXminster...

Growing up I thought every operator was named Sarah.

Once I went to the phone like clicked it several times and the operator came on... I did not dial Zero... I apologized.

In grade school one of the older brothers was an electronics major at CAL... he had modified a phone to make undetected long distance calls... my parents forbid me from ever setting foot in that house from that day forward.

I hooked up and bought a Radio Shack telephone in my parent's bedroom... the phone company sent a letter and said we needed to advise them of the ringer equivalence... guess they don't do that anymore?

 

[Bird]

Yep, 50 years ago, my parents were in Anchorage, AK, and my wife's parents were in Princeton, WV. Long distance rates were so expensive, and my salary so little, that we could only afford to call my parents one Saturday and hers the next Saturday. In other words we could only afford to talk to our parents about 10 minutes once every 2 weeks. Downtown Dallas, including the Police Deparment and Fire Department were in the RIverside 7 exchange.

 

[Will_C]

I remember calling a friend who lived 15 miles away but was "long distance". A 2 minute call to make plans cost a quarter in the late 70s. My fiancé is in Chicago on business-texted several times today and will talk to her later-no extra charge.

Will

 

[mark02tj]

Bird's recollection of 10 minute phone calls reminds me of the old commercials in the 70's when the phone companies used to advertise about how "little" a 10 minute long distance call cost. I'm not old enough to remember the "prefixes" like "GOose" though.

My sister had a party line in a small town in WV back around '77 or so. She and her husband only lived there for a short time and were "outsiders" so it used to really peeve her when she knew that the nosey people were listening on her calls.

I think there might still be a rotary phone in my parents basement. I'll have to check for it next time I'm over there. I remember have a "push button" phone that had a little switch on it for either touch tone or pulse. We didn't pay the extra couple of dollars a month for touch tone, so you'd push a number and you could hear the pulses. BUT, it was push-button! LOL!

A guy that I went to junior high and high school with owns a flower shop in the area that I grew up. I hadn't talked to him since our 10 year HS reunion in 1990. I called to order flowers for my mom's birthday and then told him who I was. He said "your house was the first time that I'd ever seen a microwave oven." I told him "your house was the first one where I ever used a touch tone phone - with a redial button!" LOL!

My oldest daughter was born in 1991. I got my first cell phone in early '92. My girls have never known me to not have a cell phone.

 

[flyerdan]

Where I grew up in northern Idaho we didn't get phone service until 1968, we were the end of the line. If I recall, it was an 8FR with a TELEC for you old school phone company employees, an 8 party line with a beige rotary dial desk phone. They were doing an all buried line for that section, I posted a picture of their D-6 cable spooler stuck in the creek in the worst stuck thread a while back.
We were on the ANdrews 7 exchange, and it was the norm to wait until after 7 pm to make any long distance calls, as the rates were significantly less. Also remember reading about Captain Midnight and the 2600 club, the phone phreaks with the blue boxes that would jump tandems off an inward watts line and call for free all over.

 

[drssg]

While watching an old episode of Andy Griffith, I was surprised to learn that there were car phones (for rich people) in the 60s. It looked like it was essentially a radio system. You pick up the phone, talk to the operator, and she places the call.

 

[sd455dan]

Ah, yes the 500 and 554 series telephones. Remember them well. They are a mechanical marvel, the governor in them is quite complex. They were still available and we installed some of them when I was a puppy telephone man. Although the 2500 series (touchtone) were much more common by then. In a lot of ways the touch tone dials were quite a bit simpler. I adjusted many of the old BA 20 series ringers also. It was all so long ago...

Me to- I repaired and refurbished 1000's of the 500's and 2500's also many of the ITT , Stromberg- Carlson Northern Telcom, GTE ( YUK) and Western Electric multi lines.
Many years later, when the company got bought we junked probably 100 gaylord pallets of the old single line and 1A2 stuff including 10, 20 and 30 button phones and thousands of plastics and new parts.
We went into repairing KSUs and the newer tech equipment. It was a good decision but watching all that brand new inventory going to the dump did bother me.
American Telephone Repair Service ( ATRS) was one of the last- if not the last Refurber and Rebuilder of American telephones in the US. But time marches on.
Once a technology is `no longer competitive with newer offerings it's days are numbered.

 

[ultrarunner]

While watching an old episode of Andy Griffith, I was surprised to learn that there were car phones (for rich people) in the 60s. It looked like it was essentially a radio system. You pick up the phone, talk to the operator, and she places the call.

I think it was Mr. Drysdale of the Beverly Hillbillies where I first saw a car phone...

In the early 70's we had an auto wholesaler with a car phone... always making deals on the phone.

 

[k0ua]

While watching an old episode of Andy Griffith, I was surprised to learn that there were car phones (for rich people) in the 60s. It looked like it was essentially a radio system. You pick up the phone, talk to the operator, and she places the call.

There were mobile phones even before the 60's. Manual systems like you described date from just after world war 2. The IMTS systems went on line I think in 1964. This is the mobile phone system most of us saw back in the 60's that was fully automatic with 13 total channels in the VHF Hi band. The costs were out of reach for most normal people. Only wealthy people could afford them for the most part. IMTS stands for Improved Mobile Telephone System. I think AMPS came on line in about 1982 or so. I am not sure of the exact year. It had 666 total channels in the 800 mhz UHF band.

I know that manual systems as you described were for sure still in operation in the 80's, as I put a lot of them on the air.