[BC] question for you engineers, take 3

[Donna Halper]

We were surmising about how easy or difficult it would have been to 
put callers on the air back in the 30s and 40s... and something just 
occurred to me-- maybe it wasn't just technology that kept stations 
from putting live callers on the air.  Perhaps one reason why 
announcers just paraphased the callers back then because of that BEEP 
that you had to air when you were putting a caller on... I remember 
hearing that beep ever few seconds when calls were on the air when I 
was growing up in the 50s.  The notification beep-- whatever it was 
called-- that let the caller know he or she was being recorded-- am I 
recalling correctly?  I am not sure when the FCC did away with it, 
but I do recall that gradually stations stopped doing it... I never 
understood the purpose of it on a line being used to put callers on 
the air-- I mean, they weren't being taped or recorded 
surreptitiously.  They were calling into a talk show and expecting to 
get on the air, were they not?