Subject: How to Make a Long Distance Call in 1942 Date: Thu May 25 23:57:32 1995 In my hobby of listening to Old Time Radio programs, I came across this gem which I've transcribed below, which gives a fascinating insight into what it took to make a long-distance phone call in 1942. This is an episode of the dramatic series "Suspense". This particular broadcast occurred on September 2, 1942, starring Orson Welles and entitled "The Hitchhiker". Welles plays a man named Ronald Adams, who is traveling alone cross-country in his car, and as the story progresses, he is becoming increasingly tormented by a mysterious figure he keeps encountering along the way, usually along the side of the road. At a tense and dramatic point near the end, he decides to call his mother in Brooklyn, New York from a payphone in Gallup, New Mexico, several thousand miles to the west. Note that the complexity of making the call has nothing to do with the story; it's just presented as how things were routinely done. PAT, feel free to jump in and clarify, if you can, why it takes at least four operators working in sequence to pull this off: (Adams deposits a coin and waits) OPERATOR #1: Your call, please... ADAMS: Long distance. OPERATOR #1: Long distance... certainly... (a buzzer is heard on the line...) OPERATOR #2: This is Long Distance... ADAMS: I'd like-- *cough* *cough* (louder now:) I'd like to put in a call to my home in Brooklyn, New York... I'm Ronald Adams... um, er, the number is BEechwood two, oh eight two eight. OPERATOR #2: Certainly; I will try to get it for you... (another buzzer, fainter this time) OPERATOR #3: Albuquerque... OPERATOR #2: New York, for Gallup... (two faint electronic beeps heard on the line) OPERATOR #4: New York... OPERATOR #2: Gallup, New Mexico calling BEechwood two, oh eight two eight. ADAMS: (talking quietly to himself:) I read somewhere that love could banish demons... (his payphone abruptly swallows the first coin into its box) ... it was the middle of the morning ... I knew mother'd be home... I pictured her, tall and white-haired, in her crisp house dress, going about her tasks. It'd be enough, I thought, just to hear the even calmness of her voice-- OPERATOR #1: (brisk, sing-song businesslike voice) Will you please deposit three dollars and eighty-five cents for the first three minutes? When you have deposited a dollar and a half, will you wait until I have collected the money ... (we hear six quarters go in one at a time, each striking the heavy bell inside the phone. After the sixth quarter, we hear a slight avalanche of coins falling inside the phone.) OPERATOR #1: (more sing-song business script:) All right, deposit another dollar and a half ... (six more clangs and an avalanche) OPERATOR #1: Will you please deposit the remaining eighty-five cents ... (three more clangs, then a ringy-ding from a dime) OPERATOR #1: Ready with Brooklyn. Go ahead, please ... ADAMS: Hello? VOICE ON THE OTHER END: Mrs. Adams' residence ... Whew! It all moves briskly along, but still takes a full two minutes and six seconds of airtime between the time Orson puts his first nickel in the phone and the time the phone is answered at his mother's house. Contrast that with how little time it takes us today to pick up the phone, rip through a speed dial and have someone halfway around the world answer in seconds. (And it probably costs less than $3.85!) Andrew C. Green (312) 266-4431 Frame Advanced Product Services 441 W. Huron Internet: acg@frame.com Chicago, IL 60610-3498 FAX: (312) 266-4473 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The above is mostly accurate. Usually if the coin deposit required was more than the collection table inside could hold, the operator refrained from asking for payment until the called number or party answered. The reason was, if there was no answer the money had to be returned, and what had been dumped in the box already could obviously not be returned through the coin return slot. If it was a small enough amount the operator would ask for it and it would be held inside on the table. The operator's switchboard had two buttons on it marked 'return' and 'collect' and by pressing one button or the other, the money would fall in the box or the table would tip in the other direction and dump the coins back out to the caller. If the amount or number of coins made it impossible to hold them all (and this usually only happened on international calls costing ten or fifteen dollars) then the operator would get the distant party on the line, tell them to hold on a minute and come back to the caller asking for the money. If the caller tried to be smart and talk to the other end before the money all got deposited the operator would either tell them to shut up and try to talk over them or she would 'split the connection'; that is, cut off the one party from hearing the other until all the money was deposited. Then if she had to collect it in increments of a few dollars at a time, tell them to wait while she collected and then ask for more, she would. For calls costing less than a couple dollars they asked for all the money up front because even with a busy/no answer at the other end, this could still be funneled down the return slot by tipping the table inside the phone to the left. It took as many operators as it did because there were apparently (in the example on the radio) no direct lines between Gallup and New York. Had there been a direct line between Albuquerque and New York then you might have heard an operator answer 'Kansas City' or 'Chicago' (or maybe both!) along the way, with a request from the earlier operator to please extend the call. Had it been in the late 1920's or 1930's, it is likely there would have been a half dozen more operators on the line in the process of making the connection. In some places, the operator who collected the money could not return it. Here in Chicago as late as about 1970, from some payphones in the south end of the downtown area if you called a suburban point which required the deposit of extra coins (over and above the five cents needed for the local connection) you had to dial '211' and tell the operator the number desired (to call Skokie for example). She would ask for the additional twenty cents due then ring the number. If there was no answer or the line was busy, she would tell you to hold on a minute for the return of your money. She plugged in on the switchboard somewhere and got another operator who answered 'Wabash' and your operator would then say something like 'return on trunk 178'. You would hear a rather rude popping noise in the earpiece and the coins would come clattering down into the coin return slot. Now and then an accident would occur: the operator would collect the coins when she meant to return them or even return them when she meant to collect them. In the former case, it was handled rather casually. If the customer indicated he would be attempting the call again in a few minutes, he would be told "when the operator answers, tell her you have ten cents credit coming from your prior call." If the coins were returned in error, the operator would ask you politely to redeposit them. PAT]