Party lines and frequency ringers.

[Greg G.]

I understand that frequency ringers were used for party lines so that only one phone would ring when a call came in for that particular number.

But that's not how I remember party lines.  In the northern burbs of Seattle in the late 50s and early 60s, EVERYBODY'S phone rang at the same time.  What was different was that each household had a certain combination of rings to indicate it was a call for their phone, e.g. two shorts and a long, or a long and a short, etc, but everybody's phone rang.  You had to listen carefully when the phone rang to see if it was "your ring".  If so, you picked up, if not, you didn't (or weren't supposed to).  Sometimes if you didn't catch all of the combination at first, you had to listen again.

As best as I can remember, the place where we lived by 69-70, private lines were the norm.  So how did we manage to skip the frequency ringer party lines?  Where and when where frequency ringers used?

[jsowers]

We had a party line at home from 1953 until about 1984 when electronic switching equipment replaced the old strowger mechanical system. It was also the era when the phone store concept came in. Our independent telco used mostly AE phones with frequency ringers on party lines, although I have seen SC wall phones used too. We shared a party line with my grandmother next door. You dialed 1543 and hung up and the phone rang on both ends, alternately (it sent one frequency and then the other). She dialed 1534 and the same thing happened. When the ringing stopped (and the person on the other end was about to hang up) you picked up the handset and started to talk. Not a very good system, but it worked for us. This was in the days before telemarketers, so you didn't hang up so quickly when you got nobody on the line.

All party lines were replaced with private lines and modular jacks about 1984 and we stopped renting a phone. By then I had a few collected phones and there was no reason to rent any more.

Other telcos were probably quicker to change. Ours just a few months ago got rid of rotary-only service, if that tells you how slowly things change around here. I do remember my other grandmother's phone was on a two-party line and it was Southern Bell. She had two rings and her neighbor had one. The number card on her phone said "Answer __2__ rings."

Before that they had a magneto wall phone and they were two shorts and a long. That ended about 1953.

[Dennis Markham]

I could be wrong but my understanding is that The Bell System used mostly straight line ringers but assigned certain ring sequences to individuals.  The different ring pattern as Briny described was done at the switching station.  The Independent companies like General Telephone, or whatever local phone company used frequency ringers to individualize a household.  I have read that The Bell System also used frequency ringers but not to the extent the Independents did.  Perhaps someone can expound more on this topic.

[Phonesrfun]

Briny:

It was different in different parts of the country and even in different parts of a city.  The "how" ringing was generated an how the end user experienced it was all a matter of how the central office was configured.  And there were four different ways of achieving party line ringing.

The worst way was the way you describe.  The coded "two longs and a short" method.  Purely a carry-over from the old magneto farm line days, but also used in cities.  I actually thought it went out with the manual switchboards, but perhaps was still in place in the older automatic dial exchanges.

The second method is the frequency ringers.  Mostly used by AE and other independants.  That's why we see a lot of frequency ringers in the phones the independants used.

The third method is the superimposed method that needs the cold cathode tube.  Bell System was the biggest user of this method, but some independants used it.  That is why an AE80 with the tube is kind of rare.

A fourth method is divided ringing which only yields three different combinations from a straight line ringer.  Both superimposed and frequency ringing also used divided ringing to multiply the possible combinations.  In divided ringing the signal is either sent over the two phone wires, or it is sent over one of the wires or other with the other side of the ringing going to ground.

All of these methods needed the central office to be in some way "intelligent" enough to know which kind of ringing to send down the line.

-Bill

[AET]

My dad says his was a party line growing up too (he was born in 59)

[Greg G.]

Briny:

It was different in different parts of the country and even in different parts of a city.  The "how" ringing was generated an how the end user experienced it was all a matter of how the central office was configured.  And there were four different ways of achieving party line ringing.

The worst way was the way you describe.  The coded "two longs and a short" method.  Purely a carry-over from the old magneto farm line days, but also used in cities.  I actually thought it went out with the manual switchboards, but perhaps was still in place in the older automatic dial exchanges.

-Bill

I definitely remember the coded-ring method when we were in the Alderwood Manor area when I started school in 59.  The area we were in was still at least partly rural, but fast becoming subdivided and turned into burbs.  A lot of development going on in those days.  It wasn't unusual to see a wooded area cleared and dozed, the stumps and brush piled up in a big heap and burned.  To this day, the smell of burning brush reminds me of my childhood.

[Kenny C]

My 87 year young grandmother told me she used to be on a party line. She said she found out every thing over that phone. She said it was a big wall phone and that my unkle used it to go fishing with and she didnt get it back

[Bill]

Of course the one advantage of the coded "two longs and a short" party line ringing method is that you could tell if a call was for you, and pick it up and talk, even if you were visiting the neighbors house.

Bill