[BC] putting phone calls on the air

[Thomas G. Osenkowsky]

Here in Brookfield, CT there was only one exchange, 775,
in 1969 when I moved here. You could just dial 5 plus the
last 4 digits. When I lived in Brooklyn, we changed our phone
number. We were give STagg2-1023. In another part of
Brooklyn another person had STerling2-1023. Crossed
lines!

Speaking of Brooklyn......there was this bright, young boy
who bought a lineman's butt set for $2 from a 7th grade
classmate who found it in his backyard after a lineman
dropped it while working up on a pole. This boy lived
on the corner of a major intersection and from the roof
could tap into telephone lines halfway up the street. Not
every apartment had a telephone in those days.

He had a good friend whose aunt had the phone.Back in
the day, IIRC, dialing 311 accessed a computer that spoke
the number from which you had dialed from. Dialing 660
gave you a Touch Tone dial tone instead of the buzz type
dial tone. If you dialed 6 and hung up, your phoen would
ring back in normal pattern. Dialing 1 made your phone ring
in short bursts, dialing 0 would make it ring continously.

One day the boy went on the roof and found his friend's
aunt's telephone line. He told his friend that if he wanted to
talk to him, he would make the phone ring special (using 1).
If the call was important, it would ring steady. He demonstrated
this one afternoon. The friend was amazed. The friend told
some kids at school and one of the rough guys didn't believe
it until he heard it for himself. No one could figure out how
the boy did this.....

Then there was the time he told another classmate that he
could rub soap and water on two tubes inside the TV
and make the picture go upside down. OK, not soap and
water, but rotating the yoke 180 deg.....

Tom Osenkowsky, CPBE