The pre-digital phone network was a marvel of mechanical and analog equipment. True machines making yes/no true false decisions to get calls properly routed.
I actually had the opportunity of calling Jane Barbe (The Time Lady) at her home in 1976 to discuss some copyright business. It was surreal listening to and talking with her, knowing she was the most listened to voice in the entire world. She was very polite and gracious. At the end of the conversation, I just had to ask her if she would tell me in person, what time it was. She said..."Oh, about half past." Wow !
Is Jane Barbe perchance the woman who did shortwave radio station WWVH's time announcements? That station in Hawaii was paired with WWV in Ft. Collins, Co. and broadcast "Time of day, standard time interval and other related information" including ocean weather updates for seafarers. When I wrote off for their info packet, they said the Hawaii voice belonged to a Jane and the Colorado voice was a man named Don. I believe they were both described as living in Atlanta. (You can tell I listened devotedly to WWV and WWVH.)
@@brianarbenz1329 Yes, the female voice of the WWVH (Hawaii) time broadcasts is that of Jane Barbe, and Don's voice is broadcast on WWV in Fort Collins, Colorado. I believe that WWVH broadcasts on 5 mhz and WWV on 10 mhz, but when you listen to either you can hear a slight gap when the more distant station announces time, to allow for the other station to announce, although both signals are synchronized to transmit the "beep" at the same time. Jane died a number of years ago, and she and her husband (the inventor of the time-telling machines used by WWV and WWVH) owned the Audichron Co., based out of Atlanta, Georgia U.S.A. These machines were mechanical, using a large rotating drum onto which Jane made her recordings. AT&T and the Bell Telephone companies all leased these machines from Audichron, as does WWV and WWVH. See RUclips videos about WWV and WWVH to see these machines. Jane often changed her dialect or accent, depending on which part of the U.S.A. her recorded announcements were offered in the telephone companies. She could sound New York, East Coast, various types of southern accents, Midwest, and standard West Coast speech. Many of us kids who lived in the 1950's made calling "The Time Lady" a regular activity, and everyone's familiarity with her voice and her recordings were as taken-for-granted as much as Baseball, Apple Pie, Coca-Cola and Mount Rushmore. Little did I know that decades later, I would be writing music about her, and would have the chance to actually speak to her in person at her home...."The most listened-to voice on Planet Earth" !! With regard to WWV and WWVH, I am very familiar with these great stations. They are the oldest continuous radio stations in the U.S.A., broadcasting since the 1920's. Their equipment has been paid for long ago, and they operate on very small budgets. In 2021 I helped celebrate the 100th anniversary of WWV, as short wave Amateur Radio Operators from all over the country gathered in Fort Collins Colorado in the middle of the huge WWV antenna "farm" to make contacts all over the world, and even into space to the International Space Station. Congress, in its infinite "wisdom" was ready to dismantle WWV, despite the fact that it is paid for and costs very little to operate. WWV needed $5 million dollars (which is lunch money to politicians in Congress) in order to continue operations. Fortunately, there was enough outcry from the public to keep WWV, but its future is still uncertain. The political idiots actually believe that since we have satellites in space, we no longer need ground-based systems as back-up, in case of satellite damage, failure, attack, or hacking. They made this mistake several decades ago when they eliminated the Omega Radio Stations around the world. These stations (one of which was also in Hawaii on the island of Oahu) were extremely powerful low frequency beacon stations which transmitted signals to underwater submarines for dead reckoning positioning. After satellite GPS came along, these Omega stations were discontinued and torn down, however, they were the only stations which worked dependably when communicating with underwater subs. Now, submarines have to almost surface in order to communicate or receive GPS signals for positioning, all of which costs millions in fuel, equipment maintenance and man hours. We live in a technical world which is capable of performing amazing magic if not miracles, however this technology is extremely vulnerable to damage, power outages, attac and hacking and wear. If old established systems are already paid for, and cost little to maintain them, it is always wise to continue such systems, because inevitably, something is eventually going to go wrong, and without back-up systems, we are immediately thrown back into the stone age with nothing. WWV and WWVH are like constant, steadfast, reliable and familiar "Rocks of Gibralter" in this world of technical uncertainty. Almost all clocks, and timing devices in existence use WWV signals as the absolute world standard for exact and accurate time. If you are a fan of these great radio stations, I would urge you to get involved by studying their possible political fate, perhaps writing a letter, and joining with other technical groups online, who are trying to help save them, because once they are gone they will never be built again.
I'm a 22 y.o who misses old technology. There's something warm and tangible about analog technology...digital is so cold. Still, I can't believe I listened to this entire thing.
In the late 60’s a high school buddy of mine figured out the frequency of the tones used for interstate toll line access by automated dialing equipment. He got a visit from people from AT&T. They said he should stop making the free calls, and when he graduated from school, they would have a job for him.
It would be so neat to talk to the friend about the way communication has transpired and what he contributed. My aunt from Detroit -Michigan Bell transferred to Southwestern Bell Phoenix early 70s. Directory assistant operator for 30 years.
In the 70's, I would go out at night and drive to Albany or even beyond that so that I could place an operator call to my own phone number in NYC. I would leave my phone off the hook so that I could get the operator to verify the line. I was so thrilled to hear the distant operator answer "212 New York, good morning". Thank you so much for making a document of these wonderful sounds. Brings back such pleasant memories.
@@westwasbest Both of you might be interested to hear this: ruclips.net/video/NIbxEJp9oLQ/видео.html That's a long distance call in 1949 from the radio series Dragnet.
The old telephone equipment was remarkable in its day. I remember many of those sounds. The technology at that time was actually very good in its day. It was also reliable.
"Organic and...GRITTY" is a brilliant way to describe the telephony of yore. To appreciate the myriad nostalgia embedded into these pops, clicks and tones, you had to be a sixties kid-or older-who was a curious sort and always wondered what was going on at the other end of the line. "Jane Barbie (sp)" is a name I've heard before and to add to this, the entire computer system that gave the time update every ten seconds was called "Ramona." At least, on the west coast. Man it was fun to call the old 520 prefix (213 area code) when a radio station was giving out concert tickets or record albums, get a crossed line with another caller, stay on the line and listen to other would-be winners click in and pretend you were the DJ and tell them something like, "I'm so sorry you are the eleventh caller we need twelve." Good times!
Hello? You have a collect call for Mrs. Floyd from Mr. Floyd. Will you accept the charges from the United States? This is the United States calling, are we reaching?
Apparently that was a real phone call to the UK through a real Bell System switch office in NYC. I wonder if that operator ever knew her voice was featured on one of the most famous rock albums in history?
I worked with her in Pittsburgh, PA at the I.O.C. (the International Operating Center). Her name was Dottie Kosanavich, and she didn't know about it, but I told her that her voice was on the record!!!
I started working for AT&T back in 1973....it was a very strict work environment but I enjoyed. I worked in 7 different dept. Employees took great pride in their jobs. When you hired on you knew you had a job for life. Things changed after 1985 with the breakup of the Bell System. I miss the old days.
I was fascinated by all this as a child. There was something mystical about it. I never would have dreamed that someone would actually have made recordings for me to listen to many decades later.
Hey, Don't let your hopes down, You can still call into crossbar switches as today and listen to the same sounds, You just gotta be smart enough to find it! ;) like i did.
This so friggin' cool. I had no idea that these sounds would hit me so emotionally-- like a shot of extreme nostalgia for my childhood. Remembering how our entire family shared a single telephone mounted in the kitchen. As teenagers, my brother and I suffered eternal angst with having to have "intimate" conversations with our friends, lying on the steps in the stairwell around the corner from the kitchen, stretching that damned curly-cue cord to its limits. Thank you Evan for the trip!
I miss the old telephones and I am 23. I love that tone before the "we're sorry, your call cannot be completed as dialed." I remember at our old family cottage, we had a rotary phone on the wall and I loved dialing it and hearing it ring. I found one in a drawer when we sold the place in 2010, and took it home with me, but I doubt it can be hooked up.
wow was a phone junkie myself have all of these sounds taped from the 1980s myself..thought I was alone lol loved messing with phones and the systems fascinated me
"We're sorry, your call cannot be completed as dialed. Would you please hang up and try again." was the greeting on my answering machine back in the 80's.
what was that weird crying baby sound you would get? I also used to love messing with the phone. You could just click once and get dead air, and hear people talking in the background.
Thanks so much for posting these. My father worked for SCB in Nashville as a frame attendant and other roles from 1966 to 1998 and as a kid he'd take me into the CO's. I was always amazed at the noise and loved watching the moving parts. That would've been the early 80's. I worked for Bellsouth briefly in 03 and 04 and when first stepping into a CO I wondered where all the noise was and noticed that the offices were mostly empty.
I've been in the legacy Paetec CO in Rochester NY. It was amazing to see the equipment there. It's all digital now however, the CO was built around the 5ESS switch.
crallspace I grew up in small town in the Dominican Replublic, the central office was step by step dialing the last 3 digist of the number and one of thise was the ringing tone and busy tine, in 1986 was introduce in the town the Direct Dialing Distance dialing 1, by the way even we was not part of USA we use same numbering plan. Good tines
@@rvairplanesrd I grew up in West-Germany in the 1990s, when the East-German states joined after the Iron Curtain fell, to join todays Federal Republic of Germany. Technically, it was very interesting, because the East used very old switching equipment, so that a call from, say, Cologne to Berlin had to be manually set up by the operator. The last phreaking things we did here in the mid 2000s usually involved semi-secret phone numbers to call internal test equipment of the phone company. These test-circuits let you make random phones ring (even payphones), do free calls or (in some cases) even listen in on phone calls. On older exchanges it could also be used as a party line.
Beyond Birthday areound 2000 here in Dominican Republic was introduce prepaid calling cards, I remember that from public phones when you dialed the access number then dialed random numbers the computer said card number invalid then public phone gave you dial tone and you could make calls for free to any number, but didnt last long the comoany found out the bug and fixed.
I grew up in a rural community in south Louisiana and still happen to remember what it was like to make a long distance call. 3 clicks, a series of beeps, 3 more clicks, another series a beeps, and then about 3 or 4 double clicks before the phone started ringing. I remember calling my aunt in Starks, La which is a very small rural community and once the phone connected to the remote switch, it would go through a series of clacking pulse dialing before the phone started ringing. It sounded like a really fast automatic teletype or typewriter of the day! They had that old switch up until the mid-2000s when it was eventually replaced with a digital switch.
My family had Bell Telephone until around 1979, or 1980, then AT&T. My parents used a rotary dial phone until 1992. My brother lived on a Kansas farm during 1983 and had a party line phone system. Using rotary dial phones all during my childhood and teen years, I remember those busy signals if you called someone who was using their own phone. My parents never had a party line system. Until 1980, they paid Southeastern Bell. My aunt was a phone operator for years. Some of the operators had that nasal tone.
I have some tapes that I recorded in 1978, calling information to other states, just to listen to the different noises in the network. The beep when the long distance party answered, and hung up. This is great.
at 32:25, it was not only a "special tone" for abroad callers, it was the French waiting tone for each calls. Until 10/18/1996, inside France when you wanted to reach another french number you heard this "waiting tone" before the "ringing tone" Due to improvement during the 80's in the phone system, connecting times were extremely reduced and "France Telecom" decided to remove this waiting tone when we moved to the ten digit numbering plan (10/18/1996 23H00). at 33.25 the man says : "please consult the directory or your directory assistance - bip bip bip - here Bar-le-Duc, the call we have recorded don't correspond to an existing subscriber, please consult the directory or your directory assistance"
We had the same tone in Ireland. It was called the "progress tone" or "routing tone". I think it was a feature of the Alcatel E10 digital switching system. About 50% of the exchanges here are Alcatel E10 and the other 50% are Ericsson AXE. I know the French network was largely built around Alcatel E10 and Ericsson AXE too and it was digital very early. So, it's quite possible it could have been very old version of Alcatel E10 that made that tone. Bear in mind there were digital exchanges in the French network in the 1970s (Alcatel E10A etc) Perhaps they weren't as fast as more modern ones and played that tone for much longer? Alcatel E10 switches started appearing here from 1980 onwards and Ericsson AXE from 1981. I don't really remember anything else, other than hearing one crossbar once or twice when I was a kid. The vast majority of local switches were digital by the early 1990s and I think one or two small crossbars (out of about 3000 switches) (from the mid 1970s) remained in service until about 1999 (but only for local calls). All of our tones, except ringing, are the same as continental Europe. The ring tone is the same as the UK. The 'routing tone' only appeared on Alcatel exchange lines and only if you were calling something that was going to take a moment to process like a mobile phone. In the past you might have heard it when the digital network was interfacing with a crossbar switch or if you were calling abroad to somewhere with a particularly slow switch, most calls connected when you hit the last digit if they were landing on a digital exchange. I haven't heard that in a LONG time though. I'd say maybe around 1996 too. The crossbar exchanges here in the 1980s and into the 1990s (Ericsson ARF/ARE) used to make a 'tick tick tick tick' tone when they were waiting for the call to process. Some crossbars elsewhere like in the UK for example, would play a 'fake' ring tone when you dialled the last digit to give you the impression of an instant connection. You'd get "riiiiiiiiiiiiinnng... ring ring ... ring ring ... ring ring"
Back in the seventies if you wanted to hook up an illegal extension phone you disconnected the ring in the 2nd phone. The phone company couldn't detect it.
Thank you so much for this! I have been wanting to hear old telephone sounds for 13 years. I had no idea they were so different in the not-too-distant past. Every phone I have ever used or heard since 1990 has always sounded exactly like they do today. I thought the current dial tone was always the same.
The sound that you show at 19:30, of that static cadence between rings, is very similar to the sound we used to have on our phones as we called out back between about 1970-1975 in the Skyline Drive and Crest View Drive areas of the Hollywood Hills. That was area code 213 at the time, and prefix 654. As a child, I used to explain the static cadence to myself as the result of our house and neighborhood being on top of the hill and the telephone lines being so long to reach up there that the wind would sort of seep into the transmissions in an auditory way. This didn't reconcile that the pattern was always the same, but then again, what could I possibly have known about Mercury switches?
Memories of Ma Bell, Bell Atlantic, New England Telephone and NYNEX all come to mind with all these nostalgic sounds. Old school staples of 70s-80s Boston, MA.
8:25 That SICK SIREN Intercept tone scared the CRAP out of me when I was a kid!!! I grew up in New Jersey and everyone who can remember phone tones before 1980 would be reminded of the HORROR of that intercept tone.
We had a summer place in Sussex County NJ and sometimes I'd call back to our home in NY just to hear the phone keep ringing. One time, I kept getting the "cry baby" sound every time I rang our house. My brother scared me and said that maybe our house burned down. I remember being on pins and needles until we returned home and saw the house was still standing.
@@BufordBuzzard Yes! Howler, There's a Step by step in California that does that same sound but even louder, And it's very cool to listen to it in 2023. i have a few recordings of it as well.
@@Janadu I looked up that exchange, And it comes back to a digital office now, So back when you were a kid you we're was hearing an actual step office Howler tone when it was still Step back in those days. That's really cool!
I feel fortunate to have worked for GTE in 1978-80. I was twenty-one and the office was SXS, which was anything but electronic back then. I was allowed to work in the "Strowger Automatic Toll Ticketing" (53A SATT) office upstairs and unsupervised (!). The office was "three and one-half units" meaning that 213-863, 864, 868 and a portion of 929 were served (Norwalk, CA). The office was a dinosaur, and the noise was deafening on Friday afternoons. I feel fortunate to have had the experience, but my new job paid more and was (relatively) quieter. BTW, our Central Office 'common-language' designation was "NRWL-XF". Thank you for the memories!!!
Well somebody had to save all these and I am glad you did. This produces a warm nostalgia that could not be explained to people who didn't live in that era. There is a wealth of reminiscence in this. Thanks!
The rural ring at 21:40 was used in a tiny town in Missouri called Lesterville well up until mid-1999. It was owned and operated by Continental Telephone until Contel merged with GTE and GTE took over the exchange in 1991.
I love telephones. This brings back memories. I wish I'd thought about recording these sounds. I used to repair and install phones back when it was illegal. Other things too. I just collect em now.
Great stuff! As lovely as Jane Barbe's voice is, I was always scared of these sorts of recordings as a kid. I think when you're expecting a friendly "hello" and instead you get a blaring special information tone it can be disquieting! Any idea what that terrible reorder tone from Fairfield, CT was all about? Terrifying!
So back then, people would actually hear all these weird noises when they would make a call? If so, thats pretty awesome and interesting. Who woulda known there was so much history and reasoning behind the sounds these earlier phone models would produce. Nowadays theres almost no variety in tones and nobody would even think about looking up a video like this as a result of the noises they'd hear... Glad I discovered this video and that I could experience a little bit of what phones were like during those times! (im 20 yrs old)
There's a Step-By-Step in California that is still in service as of 2023 you can make calls through that machine and you can hear the same sounds in this recording, in that machine it's really amazing, At this point when i hear that click when i make a long-distance call now on my Landline phone i don't really notice the clicks i'm very use to it at this point. and i think everyone else could've said the same back in those days.
These tapes are pure gold and bring back fond memories of my own explorations of the phone system in my small town in Northwest Florida. It's so gratifying to finally get detailed technical explanations for many of the strange phenomena that we observed like crosstalk and switch noise. The phone system is what drew me to technology, and unlocking its mysteries spurned a lifelong interest in all things communications related. Thank you so much for taking me back to being that curious 12 year-old again who drove the central office techs insane with my constant questions.
My former neighbor was a telephone lineman back in the 1970s to about 2009. I ran the "intercept tone" by him and he explained it to me this way: "The intercept tone is basically a carryover from the transition of the Ericsson "crossbar" and the step by step system towards ESS and eventually digital . Basically when you dial a digit on a rotary phone (works on keypad phones as well) the stepper accepts the digit, and mechanically "stores" it until the number is completed. Occasionally, thru mild oscillation, line distortion, or equipment problems, what happens is that during the dialing sequence, one or even more of the steppers fail to lock in a portion of the number prior to the handoff to the line. This has a feedback effect to the customer telling them basically "call failed" the tone's often frenetic pacing and priority also alerted personnel to run a basic systems check to insure that either a stepper isn't going out, or that (During the ESS transition) the electronic switch banks are not arbitrarily rejecting a call due to line quality or that a "short dial or short keypress" was detected. Sorry this is long, but at least his explanation made sense. Early in his career as mechanical "computers" and systems were being phased out he used to rebuild step by step equipment (solenoids, relays, contacts, etc) until the ESS began to replace the mechanical steppers and he had to be trained in Electronics and they sent him to school for it. The stories are exactly what this video demonstrates!! He had a blast during his career, said one of his best joys was seeing the most advanced communication network the world had ever seen take shape. And now? It deserves to be the Eighth Wonder of the World for its sheer intricacy and reach. One of, if not our civilization's finest achievements.
I remember in the late 70's a friend told me about a ring back number by dialing 1099 and hanging up right away the phone would do a fast ring. I would prank my brothers with this and let them answer the phone. This was in Canada using a rotary phone.
I used to play on the phone back in the 70's when I was a kid. ...lol...I was fascinated with all the sounds...and there was something about the prospect of potentially finding "connection" to virtually anywhere you could imagine that gave the phone a mysterious quality (even though I didn't dare dial a long distance number ...calling long distance would have carried some serious consequences around my house 😁).
You just described my childhood to a tee! I lived in a rural area, so I found a way around getting billed for long distance. Where I lived, when you called long distance, an operator would come on the line, asking for your phone number (obviously, so they know who to bill for the call). Because of my extensive playing on the phone, I knew that all numbers in my exchange where the last 4 digits began with a 1, 3, 4, or 5 were all non-working numbers. So when asked for my phone number, I would just give them what I knew to be a non-working number. The operator would say thank you, and then put the call through, and we never got billed for any of the calls. One of my favorite calls I made, and this shows how naive I was as a kid, is when I called a random number in Alaska (area code 907), and asked the guy on the other end if he was an "Eskimo". LOL!
I remember the telephone network whilst on holiday in Florida in the early 90's, being from UK I loved those sounds when calling home on a payphone. The operator always instructed you to add your money and she always knew how much you'd deposited too!
8:26 that is called a ""howler"', if I'm not mistaken. I was an operator during that time period, and I think that the howler came on because your dialing sequence timed out. I'm not positive, but it seems that is what happened.
that sound is the equivalent of "this number is out of service" recordings, the step by step switch systems very rarely used recordings, if they did at all
I'm glad to find these here. With less jargon than the website recordings, it makes the magic of the incredibly complex telephone system of the past easier to understand and appreciate by the public at large. I worked for The Bell System back in the 80's and remember fondly all the trunk, switching and MF sounds. Every call was like a little audio excursion.
Nowadays? If you hang up on a person who is rude to you, it just doesn't have the same sound effect as it did back when we had rotary!! THen? They KNEW you were pissed!!
I live in Brazil, I can remember clearly these sounds from the phone lines in late 80's, whe i was a child.... i remember sound like little and quik"dings" very low and far... These soudns are a little scary don't u think?
I wish you could have captured the ring that people had when they had a bell chime in there house the ring was so funny but I remember hearing a lot of the rings you have recorded it brings back fond memories
I really miss these old sounds of the phone! I was definitely a phone freak as a kid in the early 1970s. Now it's completely boring, as every phone rings the same way, whether it's your neighbor, or someone on the other side of the planet. Since I lived in a rural area, my phone used to ring like 17:03 although just a single ring, not dual.
My mom worked for MaBell and pacific bell in Redding ca 1950-1980’s. My mom Gabriella McKinney was one of the voices for “the number you have dialed has been disconnected. I’m trying to find the recording. She’s not in this post but I’ll keep looking and listening☺️
Love the muted hi speed DTMF tones in the beginning of each call initiated, and the 2600 hz disconnect tone I recognize and love from the Pink Floyd song.
In the 70's I used to call Japan. It had the most musical xylophone-type arpeggios placed before the lilting feminine announcements (in its general-intercept recordings).
Same! i'm 18 and i have A Landline phone in my house that i mess around every day, BTW i found a really cool switch in California It's called the Step-by-Step and you can call into their and make some calls on it and hear some nice CLUNKING sounds and clicks and much more. i have a few recordings of it.
Very interesting video. My grandmother had a shared line. Sometimes the phone would ring and she’d say dont answer that, it’s for the neighbors”. I used to be fascinated by the phone system, I can remember dialing rotary phones and some of these phone system noises I haven’t heard in decades.
In Hastings, MI in the late 80s/early 90s, there were a couple "dial back" exchanges. The two exchanges there were 945 and 948; corresponding dial-backs were 951 and 952. As I recall it worked like this: For a phone at 945-wxyz, you dialed 951-wxyz; for 948-wxyz, you dialed 952-wxyz. The phone then gave a "broken" dial-tone: buh-buh-buh-buzzzz. After that, 'flash the latch-hook' (like for call-waiting) and it'd go to a high tone. Hang up, and it'd start ringing. Great fun for pay-phones.
The 3 tones preceding the intercept announcement are called Supplementary Information Tones (SIT tones). For analog lines Signaling System 7 did away with in-band signaling by having a separate network to handle call setup and tear down.
Touch-Tone™ was introduced in the early '60s. I believe it originally was marketed to consumers as an extra-cost, high-tech luxury service which was only available in selected areas; businesses were also early users of tone dialing. You could tell if your line was Touch-Tone enabled by listening to the dial and ring tones--the familiar modern sound was originally the "special" electronic Touch-Tone sound, while "conventional" rotary lines had the various old-style electromechanical tones.
Really cool! I remember the sounds changed once custom calling, IE call waiting, call forwarding etc. became available.Even as a child I could tell the difference between residential and switchboard ringing as the latter was a deeper tone.
I used to hear the trunk noise as a a kid didn't know what it was. Nice to know that every weird phenomenon in real life has a reason for it. On another note I had a black and white TV that would keep the phone off the hook as long as it was plugged in even when off. I did not have a cordless phone in the house. The year was 2000 A.D.
Here is the access number to this : (3) 54690100 POP in the RTC network As for what the guy say in french, here is the translation : "here is Bar le Duc, the call we have recorded does not correspond to any of our existing subscriber. Please consult the directory or your information center" I'll see the other video !
Hell not even same as some of the heavy old school hardwired dial-tone phones, when you slammed the receiver down, It was really nice when it was a lame telemarketer lol!
i miss them days, playing on the phone late at night or when my mom was at work i would attempt to dial numbers that were nolonger in service just to hear jane barbe LOL. i always wanted to be a telephone lady that recorded those messages lol.
The ringtone at 17:43 sounds a lot like the ringtone I'd hear whenever I'd dial 411 back in the late 80s-early 90s, IIRC, albeit actually a bit noisier with more background noise than in this recording (this was in former USWest, now CenturyLink, territory), Otherwise the landline telephone network back then sounded exactly as is does today. I thought it was kind of odd sounding like that....
Thanks for the "411' on network sounds. "12 O'clock Exactly"was the thing kids loved to hear from the time lady. Listen to Kraftwerk "The Telephone Call" for a song made from many of these types of calls
The pre-digital phone network was a marvel of mechanical and analog equipment. True machines making yes/no true false decisions to get calls properly routed.
the wiring architecture involved is mind blowing
A trick : watch movies at Flixzone. I've been using it for watching loads of movies during the lockdown.
@Stephen Gideon Yup, I have been using flixzone for since december myself :)
I actually had the opportunity of calling Jane Barbe (The Time Lady) at her home in 1976 to discuss some copyright business. It was surreal listening to and talking with her, knowing she was the most listened to voice in the entire world. She was very polite and gracious. At the end of the conversation, I just had to ask her if she would tell me in person, what time it was. She said..."Oh, about half past." Wow !
jennifer86010 You were very blessed to have had that experience-Jane’s a legend!
Yes she is!
Is Jane Barbe perchance the woman who did shortwave radio station WWVH's time announcements? That station in Hawaii was paired with WWV in Ft. Collins, Co. and broadcast "Time of day, standard time interval and other related information" including ocean weather updates for seafarers.
When I wrote off for their info packet, they said the Hawaii voice belonged to a Jane and the Colorado voice was a man named Don. I believe they were both described as living in Atlanta.
(You can tell I listened devotedly to WWV and WWVH.)
@@brianarbenz1329 Yes, the female voice of the WWVH (Hawaii) time broadcasts is that of Jane Barbe, and Don's voice is broadcast on WWV in Fort Collins, Colorado. I believe that WWVH broadcasts on 5 mhz and WWV on 10 mhz, but when you listen to either you can hear a slight gap when the more distant station announces time, to allow for the other station to announce, although both signals are synchronized to transmit the "beep" at the same time. Jane died a number of years ago, and she and her husband (the inventor of
the time-telling machines used by WWV and WWVH) owned the Audichron Co., based out of Atlanta, Georgia U.S.A. These machines were mechanical, using a large rotating drum onto which Jane made her recordings. AT&T and the Bell Telephone companies all leased these machines from Audichron, as does WWV and WWVH.
See RUclips videos about WWV and WWVH to see these machines. Jane often changed her dialect or accent, depending on which part of the U.S.A. her recorded announcements were offered in the telephone companies. She could sound New York, East Coast, various types of southern accents, Midwest, and standard West Coast speech. Many of us kids who lived in the 1950's made calling "The Time Lady" a regular activity, and everyone's familiarity with her voice and her recordings were as taken-for-granted as much as Baseball, Apple Pie, Coca-Cola and Mount Rushmore. Little did I know that decades later, I would be writing music about her, and would have the chance to actually speak to her in person at her home...."The most listened-to voice on Planet Earth" !!
With regard to WWV and WWVH, I am very familiar with these great stations. They are the oldest continuous radio stations in the U.S.A., broadcasting since the 1920's. Their equipment has been paid for long ago, and they operate on very small budgets. In 2021 I helped celebrate the 100th anniversary of WWV, as short wave Amateur Radio Operators from all over the country gathered in Fort Collins Colorado in the middle of the huge WWV antenna "farm" to make contacts all over the world, and even into space to the International Space Station.
Congress, in its infinite "wisdom" was ready to dismantle WWV, despite the fact that it is paid for and costs very little to operate. WWV needed $5 million dollars (which is lunch money to politicians in Congress) in order to continue operations. Fortunately, there was enough outcry from the public to keep WWV, but its future is still uncertain. The political idiots actually believe that since we have satellites in space, we no longer need ground-based systems as back-up, in case of satellite damage, failure, attack, or hacking.
They made this mistake several decades ago when they eliminated the Omega Radio Stations around the world. These stations (one of which was also in Hawaii on the island of Oahu) were extremely powerful low frequency beacon stations which transmitted signals to underwater submarines for dead reckoning positioning. After satellite GPS came along, these Omega stations were discontinued and torn down, however, they were the only stations which worked dependably when communicating with underwater subs. Now, submarines have to almost surface in order to communicate or receive GPS signals for positioning, all of which costs millions in fuel, equipment maintenance and man hours.
We live in a technical world which is capable of performing amazing magic if not miracles, however this technology is extremely vulnerable to damage, power outages, attac and hacking and wear. If old established systems are already paid for, and cost little to maintain them, it is always wise to continue such systems, because inevitably, something is eventually going to go wrong, and without back-up systems, we are immediately thrown back into the stone age with nothing.
WWV and WWVH are like constant, steadfast, reliable and familiar "Rocks of Gibralter" in this world of technical uncertainty. Almost all clocks, and timing devices in existence use WWV signals as the absolute world standard for exact and accurate time. If you are a fan of these great radio stations, I would urge you to get involved by studying their possible political fate, perhaps writing a letter, and joining with other technical groups online, who are trying to help save them, because once they are gone they will never be built again.
I'm a 22 y.o who misses old technology. There's something warm and tangible about analog technology...digital is so cold. Still, I can't believe I listened to this entire thing.
Sometimes less is more.
Music s9metimes more is more
If analog stuff suits your fancy, check out videos of the relay logic in old elevators.
Analog tech is so warm and tangible, that even comes through digital tech like this video.
digital tech sings its own pretty songs, you just need the right equipment to make it tangible in a human hearing sense of the word
In the late 60’s a high school buddy of mine figured out the frequency of the tones used for interstate toll line access by automated dialing equipment.
He got a visit from people from AT&T. They said he should stop making the free calls, and when he graduated from school, they would have a job for him.
Did he accept?
Oh course he did that's genius.
It would be so neat to talk to the friend about the way communication has transpired and what he contributed. My aunt from Detroit -Michigan Bell transferred to Southwestern Bell Phoenix early 70s. Directory assistant operator for 30 years.
Was his name Steve Wozniak? Or Steve Jobs?
In the 70's, I would go out at night and drive to Albany or even beyond that so that I could place an operator call to my own phone number in NYC. I would leave my phone off the hook so that I could get the operator to verify the line. I was so thrilled to hear the distant operator answer "212 New York, good morning". Thank you so much for making a document of these wonderful sounds. Brings back such pleasant memories.
I live in Albany, and being from the 914 area originally, would do the same!
@@westwasbest Both of you might be interested to hear this:
ruclips.net/video/NIbxEJp9oLQ/видео.html
That's a long distance call in 1949 from the radio series Dragnet.
Wow, and I thought I was a loser
Nice story, Bill. Do you remember the kind of car you drove to Albany back then? Year and Model?
Nice story, Bill. Do you remember the kind of car you drove to Albany back then? Year and Model?
The old telephone equipment was remarkable in its day. I remember many of those sounds. The technology at that time was actually very good in its day. It was also reliable.
"Organic and...GRITTY" is a brilliant way to describe the telephony of yore. To appreciate the myriad nostalgia embedded into these pops, clicks and tones, you had to be a sixties kid-or older-who was a curious sort and always wondered what was going on at the other end of the line. "Jane Barbie (sp)" is a name I've heard before and to add to this, the entire computer system that gave the time update every ten seconds was called "Ramona." At least, on the west coast. Man it was fun to call the old 520 prefix (213 area code) when a radio station was giving out concert tickets or record albums, get a crossed line with another caller, stay on the line and listen to other would-be winners click in and pretend you were the DJ and tell them something like, "I'm so sorry you are the eleventh caller we need twelve." Good times!
Hello?
You have a collect call for Mrs. Floyd from Mr. Floyd. Will you accept the charges from the United States?
This is the United States calling, are we reaching?
+Brent Wheeler 30:35
see he keeps hanging up, and its a man answering
Apparently that was a real phone call to the UK through a real Bell System switch office in NYC. I wonder if that operator ever knew her voice was featured on one of the most famous rock albums in history?
Felamine oh she knew it.
I worked with her in Pittsburgh, PA at the I.O.C. (the International Operating Center). Her name was Dottie Kosanavich, and she didn't know about it, but I told her that her voice was on the record!!!
I started working for AT&T back in 1973....it was a very strict work environment but I enjoyed. I worked in 7 different dept. Employees took great pride in their jobs. When you hired on you knew you had a job for life. Things changed after 1985 with the breakup of the Bell System. I miss the old days.
whiskeyify I work for one of the baby bells, they kept the strictness but without the job security.
I was fascinated by all this as a child. There was something mystical about it. I never would have dreamed that someone would actually have made recordings for me to listen to many decades later.
Oh how I miss the sound of the network when it "Sounded Alive!"
I WANT TO SLEEP ON A BED MADE OUT OF YOUR VOICE BECAUSE IT SOUNDS AMAZING
jason actually this guys voice makes my ears bleed
I use to play records with OSHO speaking in Sanskrit for sleep background and it has magic effect.
Sounds like those automated voices
@@SirFaceFone Bingo! 😂 And if played with x1.5 speed rate, you can't even tell that it is not automated 😂😂😂
jason
6
"It's the sort of thing you'd want to listen to on a good stereo system yes I'm serious." 😁
I could listen to this old equipment forever! I miss this stuff!
Hey, Don't let your hopes down, You can still call into crossbar switches as today and listen to the same sounds, You just gotta be smart enough to find it! ;) like i did.
This so friggin' cool. I had no idea that these sounds would hit me so emotionally-- like a shot of extreme nostalgia for my childhood. Remembering how our entire family shared a single telephone mounted in the kitchen. As teenagers, my brother and I suffered eternal angst with having to have "intimate" conversations with our friends, lying on the steps in the stairwell around the corner from the kitchen, stretching that damned curly-cue cord to its limits. Thank you Evan for the trip!
I can still hear my Dad yelling "Don't stretch the cord!!" 😂
Don't know why i find this so fascinating
I heard the old network many times before lol it's crazy
Because you are eavesdropping on the network's lingo.
I miss the old telephones and I am 23. I love that tone before the "we're sorry, your call cannot be completed as dialed." I remember at our old family cottage, we had a rotary phone on the wall and I loved dialing it and hearing it ring. I found one in a drawer when we sold the place in 2010, and took it home with me, but I doubt it can be hooked up.
wow was a phone junkie myself have all of these sounds taped from the 1980s myself..thought I was alone lol loved messing with phones and the systems fascinated me
"We're sorry, your call cannot be completed as dialed. Would you please hang up and try again." was the greeting on my answering machine back in the 80's.
These two videos of "Vintage telephone network sounds" were a real treasure to discover. Thanks so much for your efforts!
Wait, why am I still listening to this? I've literally been listening to old phone sounds for a half an hour...
what was that weird crying baby sound you would get?
I also used to love messing with the phone. You could just click once and get dead air, and hear people talking in the background.
That was the Vacant level tone
Thanks so much for posting these. My father worked for SCB in Nashville as a frame attendant and other roles from 1966 to 1998 and as a kid he'd take me into the CO's. I was always amazed at the noise and loved watching the moving parts. That would've been the early 80's. I worked for Bellsouth briefly in 03 and 04 and when first stepping into a CO I wondered where all the noise was and noticed that the offices were mostly empty.
I've been in the legacy Paetec CO in Rochester NY. It was amazing to see the equipment there. It's all digital now however, the CO was built around the 5ESS switch.
I was a phone phreak, but in the mid 80s - early 90s, so I don't remember any of these tones. Thanks for posting.
crallspace I grew up in small town in the Dominican Replublic, the central office was step by step dialing the last 3 digist of the number and one of thise was the ringing tone and busy tine, in 1986 was introduce in the town the Direct Dialing Distance dialing 1, by the way even we was not part of USA we use same numbering plan. Good tines
@@rvairplanesrd I grew up in West-Germany in the 1990s, when the East-German states joined after the Iron Curtain fell, to join todays Federal Republic of Germany. Technically, it was very interesting, because the East used very old switching equipment, so that a call from, say, Cologne to Berlin had to be manually set up by the operator.
The last phreaking things we did here in the mid 2000s usually involved semi-secret phone numbers to call internal test equipment of the phone company. These test-circuits let you make random phones ring (even payphones), do free calls or (in some cases) even listen in on phone calls. On older exchanges it could also be used as a party line.
Beyond Birthday areound 2000 here in Dominican Republic was introduce prepaid calling cards, I remember that from public phones when you dialed the access number then dialed random numbers the computer said card number invalid then public phone gave you dial tone and you could make calls for free to any number, but didnt last long the comoany found out the bug and fixed.
I grew up in a rural community in south Louisiana and still happen to remember what it was like to make a long distance call. 3 clicks, a series of beeps, 3 more clicks, another series a beeps, and then about 3 or 4 double clicks before the phone started ringing. I remember calling my aunt in Starks, La which is a very small rural community and once the phone connected to the remote switch, it would go through a series of clacking pulse dialing before the phone started ringing. It sounded like a really fast automatic teletype or typewriter of the day! They had that old switch up until the mid-2000s when it was eventually replaced with a digital switch.
Ryan Jacob have you ever been to Shreveport??
My family had Bell Telephone until around 1979, or 1980, then AT&T. My parents used a rotary dial phone until 1992. My brother lived on a Kansas farm during 1983 and had a party line phone system. Using rotary dial phones all during my childhood and teen years, I remember those busy signals if you called someone who was using their own phone. My parents never had a party line system. Until 1980, they paid Southeastern Bell. My aunt was a phone operator for years. Some of the operators had that nasal tone.
I have some tapes that I recorded in 1978, calling information to other states, just to listen to the different noises in the network. The beep when the long distance party answered, and hung up. This is great.
Glenn Koger upload them.
Indeed, post away! Historic stuff.
at 32:25, it was not only a "special tone" for abroad callers, it was the French waiting tone for each calls.
Until 10/18/1996, inside France when you wanted to reach another french number you heard this "waiting tone" before the "ringing tone"
Due to improvement during the 80's in the phone system, connecting times were extremely reduced and "France Telecom" decided to remove this waiting tone when we moved to the ten digit numbering plan (10/18/1996 23H00).
at 33.25 the man says :
"please consult the directory or your directory assistance - bip bip bip - here Bar-le-Duc, the call we have recorded don't correspond to an existing subscriber, please consult the directory or your directory assistance"
We had the same tone in Ireland. It was called the "progress tone" or "routing tone". I think it was a feature of the Alcatel E10 digital switching system. About 50% of the exchanges here are Alcatel E10 and the other 50% are Ericsson AXE.
I know the French network was largely built around Alcatel E10 and Ericsson AXE too and it was digital very early. So, it's quite possible it could have been very old version of Alcatel E10 that made that tone. Bear in mind there were digital exchanges in the French network in the 1970s (Alcatel E10A etc) Perhaps they weren't as fast as more modern ones and played that tone for much longer?
Alcatel E10 switches started appearing here from 1980 onwards and Ericsson AXE from 1981. I don't really remember anything else, other than hearing one crossbar once or twice when I was a kid. The vast majority of local switches were digital by the early 1990s and I think one or two small crossbars (out of about 3000 switches) (from the mid 1970s) remained in service until about 1999 (but only for local calls).
All of our tones, except ringing, are the same as continental Europe. The ring tone is the same as the UK.
The 'routing tone' only appeared on Alcatel exchange lines and only if you were calling something that was going to take a moment to process like a mobile phone. In the past you might have heard it when the digital network was interfacing with a crossbar switch or if you were calling abroad to somewhere with a particularly slow switch, most calls connected when you hit the last digit if they were landing on a digital exchange.
I haven't heard that in a LONG time though. I'd say maybe around 1996 too.
The crossbar exchanges here in the 1980s and into the 1990s (Ericsson ARF/ARE) used to make a 'tick tick tick tick' tone when they were waiting for the call to process.
Some crossbars elsewhere like in the UK for example, would play a 'fake' ring tone when you dialled the last digit to give you the impression of an instant connection. You'd get "riiiiiiiiiiiiinnng... ring ring ... ring ring ... ring ring"
I love these sounds! Even if they scare me a bit.
Great voice, excellent geeky nostalgia. (I miss these sounds)
Back in the seventies if you wanted to hook up an illegal extension phone you disconnected the ring in the 2nd phone. The phone company couldn't detect it.
Thank you so much for this! I have been wanting to hear old telephone sounds for 13 years.
I had no idea they were so different in the not-too-distant past. Every phone I have ever used or heard since 1990 has always sounded exactly like they do today. I thought the current dial tone was always the same.
Good nostalgia here. Decades later I can still hear certain color-box tones in my head.
The sound that you show at 19:30, of that static cadence between rings, is very similar to the sound we used to have on our phones as we called out back between about 1970-1975 in the Skyline Drive and Crest View Drive areas of the Hollywood Hills. That was area code 213 at the time, and prefix 654. As a child, I used to explain the static cadence to myself as the result of our house and neighborhood being on top of the hill and the telephone lines being so long to reach up there that the wind would sort of seep into the transmissions in an auditory way. This didn't reconcile that the pattern was always the same, but then again, what could I possibly have known about Mercury switches?
That was probably because of water touching the cables
Memories of Ma Bell, Bell Atlantic, New England Telephone and NYNEX all come to mind with all these nostalgic sounds. Old school staples of 70s-80s Boston, MA.
8:25 That SICK SIREN Intercept tone scared the CRAP out of me when I was a kid!!! I grew up in New Jersey and everyone who can remember phone tones before 1980 would be reminded of the HORROR of that intercept tone.
We had a summer place in Sussex County NJ and sometimes I'd call back to our home in NY just to hear the phone keep ringing. One time, I kept getting the "cry baby" sound every time I rang our house. My brother scared me and said that maybe our house burned down. I remember being on pins and needles until we returned home and saw the house was still standing.
That sound is called the "Howler"
@@BufordBuzzard Yes! Howler, There's a Step by step in California that does that same sound but even louder, And it's very cool to listen to it in 2023. i have a few recordings of it as well.
@@Janadu I looked up that exchange, And it comes back to a digital office now, So back when you were a kid you we're was hearing an actual step office Howler tone when it was still Step back in those days. That's really cool!
I feel fortunate to have worked for GTE in 1978-80. I was twenty-one and the office was SXS, which was anything but electronic back then. I was allowed to work in the "Strowger Automatic Toll Ticketing" (53A SATT) office upstairs and unsupervised (!). The office was "three and one-half units" meaning that 213-863, 864, 868 and a portion of 929 were served (Norwalk, CA). The office was a dinosaur, and the noise was deafening on Friday afternoons. I feel fortunate to have had the experience, but my new job paid more and was (relatively) quieter. BTW, our Central Office 'common-language' designation was "NRWL-XF". Thank you for the memories!!!
Well somebody had to save all these and I am glad you did. This produces a warm nostalgia that could not be explained to people who didn't live in that era. There is a wealth of reminiscence in this. Thanks!
what am i doing with my life???
cool shit.
I thought that way when I was watching a person "phreak" a Nortel Norstar system. Ended up gaining a new interest.
@@qpol hi how old are you
Michael Wallace1092 you could’ve asked that a year ago when i posted that comment
@@qpol How are u
Can I just say how fabulous your OCD is ? I grew up on Long Island in the 70s and had forgotten all about this stuff. Riveting entertainment!!
The rural ring at 21:40 was used in a tiny town in Missouri called Lesterville well up until mid-1999. It was owned and operated by Continental Telephone until Contel merged with GTE and GTE took over the exchange in 1991.
It's hard to explain to you just how much I love this.
I love telephones. This brings back memories. I wish I'd thought about recording these sounds. I used to repair and install phones back when it was illegal. Other things too. I just collect em now.
Great stuff! As lovely as Jane Barbe's voice is, I was always scared of these sorts of recordings as a kid. I think when you're expecting a friendly "hello" and instead you get a blaring special information tone it can be disquieting! Any idea what that terrible reorder tone from Fairfield, CT was all about? Terrifying!
I'm not going to lie, I loved the sound of the Montreal operator speaking French.
So back then, people would actually hear all these weird noises when they would make a call? If so, thats pretty awesome and interesting. Who woulda known there was so much history and reasoning behind the sounds these earlier phone models would produce. Nowadays theres almost no variety in tones and nobody would even think about looking up a video like this as a result of the noises they'd hear... Glad I discovered this video and that I could experience a little bit of what phones were like during those times! (im 20 yrs old)
There's a Step-By-Step in California that is still in service as of 2023 you can make calls through that machine and you can hear the same sounds in this recording, in that machine it's really amazing, At this point when i hear that click when i make a long-distance call now on my Landline phone i don't really notice the clicks i'm very use to it at this point. and i think everyone else could've said the same back in those days.
Do you have discord?
These tapes are pure gold and bring back fond memories of my own explorations of the phone system in my small town in Northwest Florida. It's so gratifying to finally get detailed technical explanations for many of the strange phenomena that we observed like crosstalk and switch noise. The phone system is what drew me to technology, and unlocking its mysteries spurned a lifelong interest in all things communications related. Thank you so much for taking me back to being that curious 12 year-old again who drove the central office techs insane with my constant questions.
My former neighbor was a telephone lineman back in the 1970s to about 2009. I ran the "intercept tone" by him and he explained it to me this way:
"The intercept tone is basically a carryover from the transition of the Ericsson "crossbar" and the step by step system towards ESS and eventually digital
. Basically when you dial a digit on a rotary phone (works on keypad phones as well) the stepper accepts the digit, and mechanically "stores" it until the number is completed. Occasionally, thru mild oscillation, line distortion, or equipment problems, what happens is that during the dialing sequence, one or even more of the steppers fail to lock in a portion of the number prior to the handoff to the line. This has a feedback effect to the customer telling them basically "call failed" the tone's often frenetic pacing and priority also alerted personnel to run a basic systems check to insure that either a stepper isn't going out, or that (During the ESS transition) the electronic switch banks are not arbitrarily rejecting a call due to line quality or that a "short dial or short keypress" was detected.
Sorry this is long, but at least his explanation made sense. Early in his career as mechanical "computers" and systems were being phased out he used to rebuild step by step equipment (solenoids, relays, contacts, etc) until the ESS began to replace the mechanical steppers and he had to be trained in Electronics and they sent him to school for it. The stories are exactly what this video demonstrates!! He had a blast during his career, said one of his best joys was seeing the most advanced communication network the world had ever seen take shape. And now? It deserves to be the Eighth Wonder of the World for its sheer intricacy and reach. One of, if not our civilization's finest achievements.
I remember in the late 70's a friend told me about a ring back number by dialing 1099 and hanging up right away the phone would do a fast ring. I would prank my brothers with this and let them answer the phone. This was in Canada using a rotary phone.
I used to play on the phone back in the 70's when I was a kid. ...lol...I was fascinated with all the sounds...and there was something about the prospect of potentially finding "connection" to virtually anywhere you could imagine that gave the phone a mysterious quality (even though I didn't dare dial a long distance number ...calling long distance would have carried some serious consequences around my house 😁).
Oh, and I used to live in Rockmart, GA....lol
You just described my childhood to a tee! I lived in a rural area, so I found a way around getting billed for long distance. Where I lived, when you called long distance, an operator would come on the line, asking for your phone number (obviously, so they know who to bill for the call). Because of my extensive playing on the phone, I knew that all numbers in my exchange where the last 4 digits began with a 1, 3, 4, or 5 were all non-working numbers. So when asked for my phone number, I would just give them what I knew to be a non-working number. The operator would say thank you, and then put the call through, and we never got billed for any of the calls.
One of my favorite calls I made, and this shows how naive I was as a kid, is when I called a random number in Alaska (area code 907), and asked the guy on the other end if he was an "Eskimo". LOL!
I remember the telephone network whilst on holiday in Florida in the early 90's, being from UK I loved those sounds when calling home on a payphone. The operator always instructed you to add your money and she always knew how much you'd deposited too!
Holy shit! It's Evan Doorbell! This guy is infamous.
8:26 that is called a ""howler"', if I'm not mistaken. I was an operator during that time period, and I think that the howler came on because your dialing sequence timed out. I'm not positive, but it seems that is what happened.
that sound is the equivalent of "this number is out of service" recordings, the step by step switch systems very rarely used recordings, if they did at all
I'm glad to find these here. With less jargon than the website recordings, it makes the magic of the incredibly complex telephone system of the past easier to understand and appreciate by the public at large. I worked for The Bell System back in the 80's and remember fondly all the trunk, switching and MF sounds. Every call was like a little audio excursion.
Thanks for the trip down memory lane! Just awesome sounds of the old network!
I've had voip for several years but honestly miss having landline and may go back to it eventually. When the power goes out, the phone does too.
you have an incredible voice. You should narrate documentaries.
Nowadays? If you hang up on a person who is rude to you, it just doesn't have the same sound effect as it did back when we had rotary!! THen? They KNEW you were pissed!!
I live in Brazil, I can remember clearly these sounds from the phone lines in late 80's, whe i was a child.... i remember sound like little and quik"dings" very low and far...
These soudns are a little scary don't u think?
Funny how these sounds can be so nostalgic 😄
A nice CLUNK! lol
I wish you could have captured the ring that people had when they had a bell chime in there house the ring was so funny but I remember hearing a lot of the rings you have recorded it brings back fond memories
Why am I fascinated by this?
LOVE Mr. Doorbell. Thank goodness he did this stuff!
I really miss these old sounds of the phone! I was definitely a phone freak as a kid in the early 1970s. Now it's completely boring, as every phone rings the same way, whether it's your neighbor, or someone on the other side of the planet. Since I lived in a rural area, my phone used to ring like 17:03 although just a single ring, not dual.
My mom worked for MaBell and pacific bell in Redding ca 1950-1980’s. My mom Gabriella McKinney was one of the voices for “the number you have dialed has been disconnected. I’m trying to find the recording. She’s not in this post but I’ll keep looking and listening☺️
Absolutely fascinating to listen to. Having lived in Guam in the 70's many of these sounds were very familiar!
Love the muted hi speed DTMF tones in the beginning of each call initiated, and the 2600 hz disconnect tone I recognize and love from the Pink Floyd song.
If you were a good whistler 2600hz You could've whistle my line off just by whistling across the room! lol and that has been done before many times.
In the 70's I used to call Japan. It had the most musical xylophone-type arpeggios placed before the lilting feminine announcements (in its general-intercept recordings).
I'm 14, but I find old telephone systems so facinating
Same! i'm 18 and i have A Landline phone in my house that i mess around every day, BTW i found a really cool switch in California It's called the Step-by-Step and you can call into their and make some calls on it and hear some nice CLUNKING sounds and clicks and much more. i have a few recordings of it.
Very interesting video. My grandmother had a shared line. Sometimes the phone would ring and she’d say dont answer that, it’s for the neighbors”. I used to be fascinated by the phone system, I can remember dialing rotary phones and some of these phone system noises I haven’t heard in decades.
In Hastings, MI in the late 80s/early 90s, there were a couple "dial back" exchanges. The two exchanges there were 945 and 948; corresponding dial-backs were 951 and 952. As I recall it worked like this: For a phone at 945-wxyz, you dialed 951-wxyz; for 948-wxyz, you dialed 952-wxyz. The phone then gave a "broken" dial-tone: buh-buh-buh-buzzzz. After that, 'flash the latch-hook' (like for call-waiting) and it'd go to a high tone. Hang up, and it'd start ringing. Great fun for pay-phones.
The lady you heard on the line giving the time was the late Jane Barbe.
This is incredible for telephone geeks. A gem.
The 3 tones preceding the intercept announcement are called Supplementary Information Tones (SIT tones). For analog lines Signaling System 7 did away with in-band signaling by having a separate network to handle call setup and tear down.
WHAT AN AMAZING COLLECTION WITH GREAT EDITING AND CLEAR SOUND.
Thanks for posting.
wow you are a god... nerd radio telephone audio fantasies coming true listening to this!! THANK YOU!
The sound at 12:56 was affectionately known by us Bell operators as a PULSE TRAIN.
+1 fantastic voice and commentary. Thanks for all the great info and audio.
This is a collect call to Mr. Floyd from Mrs. Floyd, will you accept the charges?
Logan N “he keeps hanging up...”
2600hz
Super funny video and really interesting and am glad you posted this on the internet. I love to listen to stuff like this.
Fascinating! I know I'm old when I remember many of these ringtones 😊
I'm not that much into phones and the networks but this video is interesting to me because it allows you to hear what goes on in the system.
Touch-Tone™ was introduced in the early '60s. I believe it originally was marketed to consumers as an extra-cost, high-tech luxury service which was only available in selected areas; businesses were also early users of tone dialing. You could tell if your line was Touch-Tone enabled by listening to the dial and ring tones--the familiar modern sound was originally the "special" electronic Touch-Tone sound, while "conventional" rotary lines had the various old-style electromechanical tones.
I ALSO REMEMBER THE ONE BUSY SIGNAL AS THE FIRE ALARM HORN TONE.
If you notice the speed dial part, we still use that in today's house phones, only as a function.
Pulse dialing! I’m a phone freak myself and I know that sound. Lol.
The french number search tones and final ring bring back so many memories.
Really cool! I remember the sounds changed once custom calling, IE call waiting, call forwarding etc. became available.Even as a child I could tell the difference between residential and switchboard ringing as the latter was a deeper tone.
This is SO AMAZING!! It was a trip down memory lane! Wow... I just thought I'd hear the old time lady... this was a real learning treat!! Well done!!
That's because AT&T used single sideband for long distance transmission prior to digital circuits.
Remember the free long distance sound? You could break into the system with a wistel. We did it in boy scouts. We are OLD, lol.
The San Juan Telephone Company was owned by ITT and that was a Pentaconta Central Office. It was similar to an AT&T Cross Bar office
the one video I absolutely love in 240p. it adds to the mood
No this version has horrible audio quality if you want to hear an actually good quality of this find it on the Evan Doorbell RUclips channel
I used to hear the trunk noise as a a kid didn't know what it was. Nice to know that every weird phenomenon in real life has a reason for it. On another note I had a black and white TV that would keep the phone off the hook as long as it was plugged in even when off. I did not have a cordless phone in the house. The year was 2000 A.D.
Here is the access number to this : (3) 54690100 POP in the RTC network
As for what the guy say in french, here is the translation : "here is Bar le Duc, the call we have recorded does not correspond to any of our existing subscriber. Please consult the directory or your information center"
I'll see the other video !
Hell not even same as some of the heavy old school hardwired dial-tone phones, when you slammed the receiver down, It was really nice when it was a lame telemarketer lol!
i miss them days, playing on the phone late at night or when my mom was at work i would attempt to dial numbers that were nolonger in service just to hear jane barbe LOL. i always wanted to be a telephone lady that recorded those messages lol.
Do you have a landline phone in your house today
The ringtone at 17:43 sounds a lot like the ringtone I'd hear whenever I'd dial 411 back in the late 80s-early 90s, IIRC, albeit actually a bit noisier with more background noise than in this recording (this was in former USWest, now CenturyLink, territory), Otherwise the landline telephone network back then sounded exactly as is does today. I thought it was kind of odd sounding like that....
You have a great voice. This is soothing to listen to.
Thanks for the "411' on network sounds. "12 O'clock Exactly"was the thing kids loved to hear from the time lady. Listen to Kraftwerk "The Telephone Call" for a song made from many of these types of calls
ruclips.net/video/OYhQVrXBgxU/видео.html
...and now cellular phones are virtually killing land lines...
So glad you have done these....
Janice Hammersmith good riddance
I still have a landline.
Nice narrating voice.