Re: Old Party-Line Arrangements

I've gleaned from various sources, including some old Digest posts,

> that in the U.S. there were various methods employed, including up to > 10-way party lines with the last digit of the number selecting tip or > ring and the appropriate ringing cadence.

This is generally the case only where the equipment used was "terminal per line" as opposed to "terminal per station." In terminal per line set ups the last digit always indicated the cadence of the ringing with 10 possible combinations for both tip and ring side of the line so that it might be possible to have 5 different ringing cadences depending on what your number is e.g. the last digit of 1 on the ring side of the line you'd have a single ring, 2 two rings, 3 one long and a short, 4 one long a short and a long, and 5 being five short rings. Repeated for the remaining digits on the tip side.

In terminal per station you could have any ringing combination but it was determined at the central office (switch.)

I've also seen references > to tuned ringers with ringing applied at a different frequency for > each party, and to party-line numbers having an additional digit > (coded as a letter) added the end of the regular number.

Mostly used by independents rather than by the Bell System.

When it comes to outgoing calls once DDD and CAMA had arrived, I've > seen references to different ringer wiring combinations to enable the > equipment to test for originating party, and also in the earlier days > of DDD that in some places (maybe small independents?) callers had to > dial an ID digit (e.g. 1x + NPA + number).

On two-party lines whether it was tip or ring determined whether either party would be charged and you could use AMA. With four party you used CAMA and an operator would come on the line to ask what your number was.

Independents used "ID" digit.

Reply to
Joseph
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Billing info was sent to a tape punch at the end of the call.

> Tapes were "read" once per week in small offices, daily in the big > offices, and 90 column cards were created for shipment to the data > center where bills were produced. The C.O. was a noisy place then.

This reminds me many years ago when a Bell 5XB with AMA about 60 miles from the accounting office sent the wide yellow tapes (no conversion to punch cards) to the nearest accounting office by a package express company. Once the box never arrived and apparently fell off the truck. As in most such shipments, the carrier's liability was limited to $50 unless a high value was declared and paid for.

There was an immediate hue and cry that every such shipment have the full value declared and the excess value fee paid.

Cooler heads prevailed, and the matter was studied. The value of the calls on the lost AMA tapes was estimated at between $5,000 and $6,000. There had never been any other tapes lost since AMA offices were first installed in Oklahoma, and paying for the full value on all such shipments would amount to, as I recall, $500,000 a year.

The idea of paying for the full value on all of them was hastily dropped.

Wes Leatherock snipped-for-privacy@aol.com

Reply to
Wesrock

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