Number PULEAZE! Part Seven:

I was a telephone operator for PT&T in Santa Rosa, Calif. from �76 thru �78 and I worked at a cord switch board. Even in the 70�s there were still many long distance calls that still required operator assistance and those of us �0� operators placed those calls for the customers from our cord switch boards. All International calls, Mobile calls, marine calls, coin telephone calls, collect calls, person to person calls, calls LD calls from Hotels and Motels and the County Jail were placed by the operator.

We also still had some customers in area code 707 that didn�t have dial telephones, they were on rural lines that required EVERY call to be placed by the operator. My family lived in such an area in the 60�s. We had 5 other customers on our party line and you had to listen for the ring in order to tell if the call was for your home. Our number was Russian Gulch #3 and our ring was one long and one short. To place a call you�d lift the receiver and listen to see if anyone else was on the line, in which case you�d have to hang up and wait until the line was clear and the operator would come on the line, announcing Operator, then you�d say, operator this is Russian Gulch #3 and I want to call Seaview #10 and the operator would ring down your your call for you. When I turned 13 in February 1964 my Mom was in Brooklyn, NY visiting relatives. When she called me to wish me a Happy Birthday it took her almost an hour to get the Operator to take her seriously that she was calling Russian Gulch #3 via the Santa Rosa Calif operator, she thought Mom was pulling her leg.

There were no cell phones then and almost every call that wasn�t within your local area was a Long Distance call, and they all cost plenty. Customers in our area could direct dial intra and inter state LD numbers using 1 and then the area code and the line number, but for most of the 707 area code these calls still required some minimal operator assistance via the CAMA (Centralized Automated Message Accounting) operator. When an operator was working the CAMA board we would receive a beep in our headsets to indicate that a customer was on the line, then we would say, your number please (the number they were calling from) then we�d key in their number, say thank you and immediately get the next beep for the next call. A CAMA operator would key in an average of 600 telephone number per hour. This process is how these customer direct dialed calls were billed, so if a dishonest person gave the number for someone else as there number then that poor bastard was billed for the grifters call, but eventually Mother Bell caught up with these miscreants and billed them anyway, so the payment was just delayed by their dishonesty.

Being a telephone operator was a very fast paced and interesting job, the time really did fly by when you were at the switch board.

In the time period being depicted in the YT video many locals had designated LD operators that were reached by dialing 113 to reach the LD operator.

Additionally, during the time period that I worked foe Ma Bell there was no 911 yet for emergency call, and the �0� operator handled ALL emergency calls and remained on the line until the emergency help arrived, Some of those call could be quite upsetting needless to say.

It was a very different time when the telephone wasn�t taken for granted and every time it rang you rushed to answer it. There was no caller ID and very few crank calls. Today my telephone can ring several times a day and it doesn�t get answered because 99% of the calls are from fraudsters. It�s a different world indeed.

Eddie


Forum Topics & Rules Manuals & Literature	New users Click-here to sign-up

Post# 1199089 2/11/2024 at 20:39 by Ultramatic (New York City)
Checkrate/Likes All about vintage telephones up to 1989. Advertisements, humor, history, collections, equipment, restoration/repair, technical questions, resources or just plain memories, it's all here. While emphasis is placed on American telephones, vintage telephones from around the world are also most welcomed. "Hello central???" Part One: http://www.automaticwasher.org/c... Part Two: http://www.automaticwasher.org/c... Part Three: https://www.automaticwasher.org/cgi-bin/TD/TD-VIEWTHREAD.cgi?79508 Part Four: https://www.automaticwasher.org/cgi-bin/TD/TD-VIEWTHREAD.cgi?81652 Part Five: https://www.automaticwasher.org/cgi-bin/TD/TD-VIEWTHREAD.cgi?86772 Part Six: https://www.automaticwasher.org/cgi-bin/TD/TD-VIEWTHREAD.cgi?90664

Post# 1199091 , Reply# 1 2/11/2024 at 20:41 by Ultramatic (New York City)
Checkrate/Likes *Bell System 1916*

Post# 1199093 , Reply# 2 2/11/2024 at 20:42 by Ultramatic (New York City)
Checkrate/Likes *Bell Telephone System 1957*

Post# 1199094 , Reply# 3 2/11/2024 at 20:43 by Ultramatic (New York City)
Checkrate/Likes *Western Electric 1965*

Post# 1199095 , Reply# 4 2/11/2024 at 20:44 by Ultramatic (New York City)
Checkrate/Likes *Western Electric 1955*

Post# 1201646 , Reply# 5 3/16/2024 at 14:42 by Novum (Ireland)
Checkrate/Likes 2 *Operator assisted long distance calling in the US in 1949* I'm not sure if this has already been posted, on a previous thread, but it's an accurate representation of a transcontinental, long distance call being made via multiple operators : This as recorded as part of a radio play to add realism and suspense, but it's one of the few representations of what making a long distance call would have sounded like back in the day.

Post# 1201650 , Reply# 6 3/16/2024 at 15:57 by ea56 (Cotati, Calif.)
Checkrate/Likes 3 I was a telephone operator for PT&T in Santa Rosa, Calif. from �76 thru �78 and I worked at a cord switch board. Even in the 70�s there were still many long distance calls that still required operator assistance and those of us �0� operators placed those calls for the customers from our cord switch boards. All International calls, Mobile calls, marine calls, coin telephone calls, collect calls, person to person calls, calls LD calls from Hotels and Motels and the County Jail were placed by the operator. We also still had some customers in area code 707 that didn�t have dial telephones, they were on rural lines that required EVERY call to be placed by the operator. My family lived in such an area in the 60�s. We had 5 other customers on our party line and you had to listen for the ring in order to tell if the call was for your home. Our number was Russian Gulch #3 and our ring was one long and one short. To place a call you�d lift the receiver and listen to see if anyone else was on the line, in which case you�d have to hang up and wait until the line was clear and the operator would come on the line, announcing Operator, then you�d say, operator this is Russian Gulch #3 and I want to call Seaview #10 and the operator would ring down your your call for you. When I turned 13 in February 1964 my Mom was in Brooklyn, NY visiting relatives. When she called me to wish me a Happy Birthday it took her almost an hour to get the Operator to take her seriously that she was calling Russian Gulch #3 via the Santa Rosa Calif operator, she thought Mom was pulling her leg. There were no cell phones then and almost every call that wasn�t within your local area was a Long Distance call, and they all cost plenty. Customers in our area could direct dial intra and inter state LD numbers using 1 and then the area code and the line number, but for most of the 707 area code these calls still required some minimal operator assistance via the CAMA (Centralized Automated Message Accounting) operator. When an operator was working the CAMA board we would receive a beep in our headsets to indicate that a customer was on the line, then we would say, your number please (the number they were calling from) then we�d key in their number, say thank you and immediately get the next beep for the next call. A CAMA operator would key in an average of 600 telephone number per hour. This process is how these customer direct dialed calls were billed, so if a dishonest person gave the number for someone else as there number then that poor bastard was billed for the grifters call, but eventually Mother Bell caught up with these miscreants and billed them anyway, so the payment was just delayed by their dishonesty. Being a telephone operator was a very fast paced and interesting job, the time really did fly by when you were at the switch board. In the time period being depicted in the YT video many locals had designated LD operators that were reached by dialing 113 to reach the LD operator. Additionally, during the time period that I worked foe Ma Bell there was no 911 yet for emergency call, and the �0� operator handled ALL emergency calls and remained on the line until the emergency help arrived, Some of those call could be quite upsetting needless to say. It was a very different time when the telephone wasn�t taken for granted and every time it rang you rushed to answer it. There was no caller ID and very few crank calls. Today my telephone can ring several times a day and it doesn�t get answered because 99% of the calls are from fraudsters. It�s a different world indeed. Eddie

Post# 1201652 , Reply# 7 3/16/2024 at 17:30 by wayupnorth (On a lake between Bangor and Bar Harbor, Maine)
Checkrate/Likes 2 Eddie, my mother was an operator for Ma Bell and that was exactly the way it was back then and you did not get any discount on your bill for working there. Choice of a black desk or wall phone you rented, calling the next town was long distance. I worked for the phone company and was behind the scenes that shows how massive and extremely complicated the system that actually, always works. The first phone here was one long, one short, one long ring on a 12 party line. Glad those days are over and I still have a landline.

Post# 1201653 , Reply# 8 3/16/2024 at 17:48 by ea56 (Cotati, Calif.)
Checkrate/Likes 1 Tim, my maternal Grandma�s parents owned a hotel in Sharon, Kansas in the early 20th century. Back in those days it was common in rural areas that telephone switch boards for the community to be owned by and located in hotels. My Great Grandpa had such a telephone switchboard located in his hotel. My Grandma and her sisters worked the switchboard when they weren�t in school. During WWI there were many German farmers in that area of Kansas. When my Mom remarried in �70 my Great Aunt Mollie came down from Washington state to the wedding. At the reception I recall and Mollie and Grandma talking about their days of working at the switchboard during WWI. This was the first I ever knew about Great Grandpa having the telephone switchboard at the hotel. Apparently, Grandma and Mollie used to listen in on the calls, which is of course verboten. Mollie said to Grandma, �Sallie, remember how we used to cut off the those people when we heard them talking in German because we were sure that they must have been saboteur's?� There was a lot of animosity towards Germans in America during WWI. Eddie This post was last edited 03/16/2024 at 23:10

Post# 1201661 , Reply# 9 3/16/2024 at 20:20 by Novum (Ireland)
Checkrate/Likes 1 It�s was an interesting era. I was just looking at the history of operator service here in Ireland. The very last manually operated local exchange in the network here was Mountshannon, County Clare (population 200). It closed on May 28, 1987. It went from straight from a magneto switchboard to being a small remote for an Ericsson AXE digital switch, which itself permanently retired in 2023, having gone through various versions since 1981. Kinda cool though to see it having gone from what was basically 1800s crank and talk technology straight to full digital PSTN, ISDN, to VoIP and FTTH in the space of just 37 years. It�s sad in a way to see even the specialist hardware gone. It�s all just soft switches running on generic services, basically an app on IP networks nowadays. The last Strowger in the network closed in 29th April 1989 at Clontarf in Dublin, replaced by an Alcatel digital switch and basically that was the end of old tech switching here, so I have no memory of it really at all. The ability to call any kind of operator was withdrawn here in 2007. The �10� operator service and �114� international operator services completely closed. You can�t even make a reverse charge / collect call anymore. We had 1800 REVERSE for a while but I don�t think it ever saw much use. Just kinda remarkable that we are about to witness the end of a tech that remained fairly stable since the dawn of widespread dial phone service in the 1920s. It�s basically the end of the century of the modern, high tech PSTN and classic phone service. The switch to IP telephony and mobiles is far more fundamental than digitalisation was. The concept of what a phone is and what phone service is has changed entirely. Some PSTN networks are already essentially gone. What remains will be gone forever within a few more year at most. This post was last edited 03/16/2024 at 21:02

Post# 1202325 , Reply# 16 3/26/2024 at 21:02 by Novum (Ireland)
Checkrate/Likes That 1916 extension rental is $14.24 a month in 2024 money. Not much cheaper than an extra cable box or similar today.

Post# 1202341 , Reply# 17 3/27/2024 at 07:56 by Novum (Ireland)
Checkrate/Likes 1 *Just a look beyond the Bell system - Ericsson.* Telecom Australia (now Telstra) film from around 1980, but possibly could be a bit earlier. It just shows how their systems worked in a lot of detail. It just gives a view of Ericsson systems in quite a bit of detail and just day-to-day working practices as they were back in the late 70s. It's also very much that era when remote working within those companies began, and you'll see very few uniforms etc, just casual clothes. Suddenly became more like the IT sector, other than the tendency to wear lab coats in the exchanges in Australia in that era. Most of this gear is more or less identical to stuff that was used here, and probably in a lot of parts of Europe. The exchanges also look more or less the same. The very old stuff was likely Stowger built by companies like STC (Standard Telephones and Cable). The newer stuff was Ericsson. It's all Ericsson ARF (Crossbar), ARE (Computerised crossbar) and AXE (Digital). They keep referring to SPC (Stored programme and control) and 'ANA' which was Ericsson's computer system for crossbars. ITT/Alcatel System 12 digital switches were added around the same time and I think Australia may have also used ITT Pentaconta, probably built locally by STC. Fairly techie video about work practices and stuff, but it gives you an idea of how switches and technicians worked around the last generations of analog Ericsson networks back in the day. This post was last edited 03/27/2024 at 08:24

Post# 1202054 , Reply# 10 3/21/2024 at 21:37 by Ultramatic (New York City)
Checkrate/Likes *Bell System 1916*

Post# 1202055 , Reply# 11 3/21/2024 at 21:50 by Ultramatic (New York City)
Checkrate/Likes *Bell System 1977*

Post# 1202060 , Reply# 12 3/21/2024 at 22:09 by Ultramatic (New York City)
Checkrate/Likes 1 *Bell Telephone System 1943*

Post# 1202061 , Reply# 13 3/21/2024 at 22:11 by Ultramatic (New York City)
Checkrate/Likes *Gray 1899*

Post# 1202063 , Reply# 14 3/21/2024 at 22:13 by Ultramatic (New York City)
Checkrate/Likes *Iillinois Bell Telephone 1957*

Post# 1202091 , Reply# 15 3/22/2024 at 12:22 by CircleW (NE Cincinnati OH area)
Checkrate/Likes *Reply #12 1943 Bell Telephone* My mom began working as an operator for Southern Bell Telephone either late that year or early 1944, first as local, then long distance. That was in the Hattiesburg, Mississippi exchange, which handled calls in and out of Camp Shelby, a very busy Army training center. This was probably why the Hattiesburg operator center was one of the first to get multi-frequency tone dialing equipment, which was installed while she was working there. This permitted the operators to complete calls to many major cities without going through other operators. Hattiesburg customers didn't get dial phones until 1953, but they also got intertoll dialing (direct dial LD) at that time to certain locations.