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Old dial tone

Started by Phonesrfun, May 09, 2010, 04:39:35 PM

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rp2813

Thanks for the link.  It tries to save the sound as a "ram file" and I can't get it to play, but I'll keep trying things.
Ralph

GusHerb

Quote from: jsowers on May 10, 2010, 04:57:12 PM
I recall from childhood that the RE1-2xxx numbers in the small community I still live in sounded different in the ringing tone when called than the other numbers like mine that were RE1-4xxx. The busy signal also sounded strange. This all changed when they brought in digital switching equipment in the 1980s. It resembled the old dial tone and busy signals Bingster posted, but with a little more of a bass note. Almost like the sound a ceramic phono pickup makes when you touch one of the leads. Maybe a 60-cycle hum?

I also remember the busy signal in a small community called Denton after I started working for the school system in 1985 and I had to call the school there. It was a honk-honk-honk sound similar to Hoppy the Kangaroo on the Flintstones. Hoppy was Dino's counterpart over at Barney and Betty Rubble's house, in case you need to know. I laughed every time I heard that. It's gone now too, many years ago.

There's an exchange around here that when dialing the numbers it handles, makes a different sounding ringing tone over everything else. It sounds like a rotational sound.  those numbers are 972 and 923, my grandma's number is a 972 and it has sounded like that as long as I can remember, then recently I had to dial a 923 number and noticed it sounded just like 972's unique sound.
Jonathan

Bustercat

#17
wow, thanks for these.

I remember that second old busy signal from some old comedy... was it chaplin's modern times, or the three stooges?

deedubya3800

Quote from: bingster on May 10, 2010, 04:33:33 PM
Here are a few that I've picked up around the net.  I think some of them came from the Bell System Memorial site. 

Wow! Those really bring back the memories! I remember that old dial tone, the first busy signal of the two given, and the ringback tone! In fact, I had mentioned them in my post about my first old phone before I found this thread. Ah, the days of pulse dialing and five-digit local numbers! :)

dsk

#19
Hi, waking up this old thread, I want some support ;D or even better your real opinion.

I just stumble over this dial card. It was sitting on an old 1934 telephone from Oslo Norway.  I have always been told our dial tone = A (425 Hz)

But her it states "Wait for dial tone" and has a big B.  When I grew up we were connected to an old exchange, and as far as I recognize the tone was near to 247 HZ or B.  
You may generate the tones here: http://www.seventhstring.com/tuningfork/tuningfork.html

Any other reason for printing that B????

dsk

Adam

I don't know the answer to your question, but thanks for posting that picture!  Being that the "backwards" Oslo dial has been a fascination of mine, it was fun to see!
Adam Forrest
Los Angeles Telephone - A proud part of the global C*Net System
C*Net 1-383-4820

Wallphone

I was just checking out some Wiki's today and came across a few things about tones. Many of the tones you hear are multi-frequency such as dual or even quad. Here are some of the links.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dial_tone <
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Off-hook_tone <
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Telephony_signals <
On the ones that have a wav.file you have to play it once before you can save it. Either right click, or click on "more" under the time line to save it.

Doug Pav

dsk

#22
Tried to make a redraw of the card.
Both reverse, and ordinary dial.
dsk

Weco355aman

If you want to hear a  vacuum tube busy  signal call 218-488-6399 x-y
or a step by step ringback tone call 218-488-9901 WE sxs.
Please note the calls will take a log time to complete. Aprox 15 sec. Also they will be VOIP and not a great quality.
Phil

GG



I have eidetic audio so I can still play many of those tones in my mind's ear.  Brings back a lot of memories, and the wish that these things still existed today. 

When I was a kid, Bell System crossbar dialtone in NJ Bell was very much like the "modern dial tone" .wav recording: similar to the modern "standard precise tone plan" dialtone we have now, but with that higher pitched tone in the background.  Crossbar busy tone was a repetitive buzz.  Ringing tone was similar to ESS ringing tone (standard precise tone plan) but a bit "rougher" sounding.

Moving to Connecticut in the late 70s, the entire state with few exceptions was still Strowger, and the variety of sounds these had was just amazing.  Each exchange had a slightly unique dial tone, busy tone, and ringback tone.  My home exchange had a medium-pitched "burrrrrrrrr", another that served a nearby town where friends lived had more of a bass-pitched "Wohhhhhhhh", and so on.  Describing the sounds of these things is like trying to describe tastes: you can approximate it, but it's very difficult to convey accurately.   Though, with a sufficiently flexible audio oscillator setup, one could re-create most of them. 

All of the Strowger machines in CT had that "number unobtainable" tone, which we referred to as the "cat howler," envisioning a trained cat perched next to a desk stand phone, who would go "meeee-yowwww, meee-yowwww" when a red light came on.  But as with the other tones, the "cats" were different in each exchange. 

I never heard the story before about "just hooking up a buzzer" to produce tones, and I'm inclined toward skepticism about that.  Proper Strowger exchanges had "motor/generator sets" that produced the 90 volt ring and the rest of the tones in the switch, and the cadences for ringing, busy, reorder, and so on. 

One time I stayed in a motel where the PBX's motor/generator set would remain idle unless there was traffic on the switch.  I'd pick up the phone and hear it spin up to speed and then overcorrect just a bit: the tone would start out low pitched and then rise to just above its normal pitch and then settle down to normal.  They had 500 sets that might have been SC, so chances are the PBX was not WE.  Might have been SC XY for all I know, but I've never knowingly heard an XY dial tone. 

Then there's the whole topic of foreign call progress tones, some of which could be heard on foreign PBXs imported into the US.  I worked on Ericsson crossbar for a while, and Ericsson ASB-100.  All of the Ericsson machines used one tone pitch of about 400 - 425 Hz with various cadences.  The dial tone was actually an interrupted tone: "doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo...."  Busy tone was similar to US cadence.  Ring tone was as well though slightly faster.   There were also Hitachi and NEC crossbar switches in the US, often installed in hotels & motels from what I could see of the front-desk switchboards. 

The current generation of Panasonic PBXs has an option for an internal dial tone that sounds like an uninterrupted ring tone ("purrrrrrrr").  I use this for clients in order to differentiate internal from external dial tone and prevent the risk of errors dialing 9-1-1 (actually 9-9-1-1) in an emergency.   

I also have an old GPO (UK) 10-station PAX using two uniselectors, in which the dial tone and ringback tones (there's only one link, thus no busy tone) are straight-up 60 Hz (presumably originally 50 Hz in the UK). 

rp2813

Another thing about the old dial tone.

I remember that upon dialing out, after the fingerwheel returned from dialing the first digit, there would be a brief sound of dial tone, barely half a second.  This would only occur after the first digit dialed.  After that, you got complete silence/white noise after the fingerwheel returned from dialing subsequent digits.

Was that a crossbar/analog characteristic?

Ralph

GG



That could happen in Strowger exchanges that had "digit-absorbing selectors."  These were selectors that only existed to respond to the first one or two digits that weren't needed before dialing the last five or six digits for a local call. 

For example let's say your local number started out as 5-2368.   Now a few decades go by and the telco has to make it conform to the national numbering plan, so they extend it to KLondkie 5 - 2568.   You can still dial 5-2368, but if you dial KLondike 5-2368, the first two 5s will be absorbed as if you hadn't dialed them.

I've also seen the last digit of the prefix only, absorbed in this manner.  For example given the exchange 543, one could dial a local call as 54 + the last four digits. 

At least some crossbar switches in New Jersey in the 1960s did not respond to the leading digit 1.  You could dial a 1 and you would not break dial tone.  Long distance calls were just dialed as 7 digits or area code plus 7 digits. 

rp2813

Interesting. 

Most exchanges here in town began with a 2.   ALpine, ANdrews, AXminster, BAldwin, CHerry, CLayburn, and CYpress come to mind.  So, probably 9 times out of 10 in the scenario described above, the 2 wasn't required.  I'll bet that's the explanation.
Ralph

deedubya3800

I remember that, long ago when I dialled a number, the dial tone didn't stop until that first digit was dialled. Of course, in the earpiece, one didn't hear the dial tone while the dial was turned, but once it returned to its original position, it would be audible just briefly and then stop; but listening in on the line in a series connection (like a tap), the dial tone could be heard to cut in and out with each pulse of that first digit until that digit was done pulsing and the dial was fully returned.

dsk

Quote from: deedubya3800 on March 12, 2011, 12:17:44 PM
I remember that, long ago when I dialled a number, the dial tone didn't stop until that first digit was dialled. Of course, in the earpiece, one didn't hear the dial tone while the dial was turned, but once it returned to its original position, it would be audible just briefly and then stop; but listening in on the line in a series connection (like a tap), the dial tone could be heard to cut in and out with each pulse of that first digit until that digit was done pulsing and the dial was fully returned.

Happens here in Norway too.

dsk