Verizon-PA ending weather forecast [Telecom]

For a great many years, Verizon-PA (Bell Telephone Company of Pennsylvania) and its predecessors have provided a recorded weather forecast for Philadelphia; 215-WEather 6-1212.

The recording had a preface that it will be discontinued soon.

It once had hourly updates, now it is only a few times per day.

Back in science class in school we had to call it regularly to track temperature and other figures as part of weather studies. (This posed a problem as some kids had message rate service and frequent calls would add up.)

Back in the 1960s Bell sponsored the local weather forecase on the evening TV news, using a real college physicist (not a blowdry). At the end of each broadcast he would flip over a little sign with the phone number, reminder viewers they could call it at any time to get the weather.

Verizon also offers a time of day service, 215-TIme 6-1212. I don't know the status of that.

(Notice these services are so old that meaningful exchange names were set up just for them. Can't do that today.

Reply to
hancock4
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In New Haven, CT, and perhaps elsewhere in the 203 area of the former SNET, the number codenamed SPRINGS (777-4647) brings up a 15-second AT&T promo, a 5-second time stamp, a 5-second temperature report (in F.), and a polite 5-second "Thank you for calling".

Why SPRINGS? Beats me -- but it's been that way for at least 30 years.

Cheers, -- tlvp

Reply to
tlvp

I tried the number from my cell phone (951) and was surprised on getting through, most services like that are restricted to within the local exchange, I guess those rules don't hold in the deregulated world.

Reply to
Steven Lichter

203-777 is a regular SNET New Haven exhange, and 203-SPRINGS is a regular phone number that you can call from anywhere for the price of a call to New Haven. When I arrived in New Haven in 1971 it had already been time/weather for a long time.

R's, John

Reply to
John Levine

Thanks for bringing back a memory! I was in New Haven from 1978 to

1982.

I wish I had kept my New Haven phone book, which was titled "The Book of Names" in an allusion to the very early history of SNET. Do they still do this?

Reply to
MC

The area code 215 (Phila) numbers were always regular numbers and remain so. Regular calling charges applied (free to flat rate customers). Some cities switched their dial-up weather/time services to 976 numbers which had special charges or restrictions.

Reply to
hancock4

Some time ago the Phila Time/Weather services were dropped from the telephone directory.

Reply to
hancock4

I believe you are talking about the old WFIL-TV (Channel 6) now WPVI that had Dr. Francis Davis as the weatherman.

This would have been in the very early 60's. I was born in 1955 and remember the tag line...

"For the recorded forecast at any hour of the day or night, just call WE6-1212."

Years ago, when I first started working at Bell of PA (1975) I was a directory assistance operator. Once I was temporarily loaned to the "Locust DA office" located at 1631 Arch street in downtown Philly. This was also the Locust central office building.

Anyway, there was one position in the office that was used to record the announcement. A few minutes before the hour, they would get the "script" off of a teletype in the office that would have the updated weather forecast. Just after the hour, a light would come on at their position and they would record the forecast, starting with, "Good (morning,afternoon,evening) this is (insert name here) with the National Weather Service forecast for the Philadelphia vicinity.".

After they finished, that recording became the recoding for the next hour.

That was over 32 years ago.......

John

Reply to
John P. Dearing

Yep . Along with Gunnar Back (sp?) news anchor. I wonder whatever happened to him. I did read someplace he was previously a major reporter, either TV, radio, or wire service.

Dr. Davis was the dean of science at Drexel Univeristy (nee Drexel Institute of Technology).

Is this building now a fancy condo or office tower?

Any idea why they're pulling the plug? Although I'm not really surprised in this day and age.

Reply to
hancock4

Alas, no: now it's "AT&T Real White Pages - Greater New Haven." Before that it was "SBC White Pages - Greater New Haven." I no longer have the last SNET edition, sorry.

Cheers, -- tlvp

Reply to
tlvp

No, 1631 Arch is still the Locust central office as well as other office space.

I think you're thinking about another building a few blocks down, 1835 Arch. That building was originally the executive building (before #1 Parkway was constructed). It also had at one time some engineering offices and I think some Marketing folks were there as well. The building was eventually sold and was converted into condo's and possibly some office/retail space.

One Parkway (located at 1515 Arch St.) became the Bell of Pa headquarters building until the Bell Atlantic Tower was built (1717 Arch St.) and the executives all moved over there.

Eventually, One Parkway was sold to the City of Philadelphia for a nominal sum (essentially a gift) and the city now has a number of offices in there now.

I did a lot of work in the building when it was still a phone company building. Probably ran several miles of LAN drops in all. But that was a few years ago as well....

-=[ snippage about the Weather recording process]=-

I'm guessing the it just isn't used enough any more to warrant keeping it alive. I get the weather on my PC or my Blackberry now....

Cheers and thanks for letting this old timer reminisce.

John

Reply to
John P. Dearing

I once compared the Phila phone book to one of 40 years prior. To my surprise, many residences still had the same name, address, and number after all that time. Business listings almost all were different due to Centrex replacing a PBX. Of course, there were some significant changes reflecting ethnic changes in the city, such as Vietnamese immigrants not there 40 years before and other ethnicities moving to other parts of the city

Reply to
hancock4

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