Along Party Lines circa 1950 Bell System; Telephone Operator Training Film

• published: 14 Mar 2015
• views: 16

more at http://phones.quickfound.net "Very entertaining film made for phone operators about the many problems you may encounter from customers about party lines." Public domain film from the Prelinger Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and mild video noise reduction applied. The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_line_(telephony) A party line (multiparty line, shared service line) is a local loop telephone circuit that is shared by multiple telephone service subscribers. Party line systems were widely used to provide telephone service, starting with the first commercial switchboards in 1878. A majority of Bell System subscribers in the mid-20th century in the United States and Canada were serviced by party lines, which carried a billing discount over individual service; during wartime shortages, these were often the only available lines. British users similarly benefited from the party line discount. Farmers in rural Australia used party lines, where a single line spanned miles from the nearest town to one property and on to the next... Telephone companies offered party lines since the late 1800s, although subscribers in all but the most rural areas may have had the option to upgrade to private line service at an additional monthly charge. The service was common in sparsely-populated areas where remote properties are spread across large distances, such as Australia (where these were operated by the Government Post Master General department). In rural areas in the early twentieth century, additional subscribers and telephones, often numbered in several dozen, were frequently connected to the single loop available. Party lines provided no privacy in communication. They were frequently used as a source of entertainment and gossip, as well as a means of quickly alerting entire neighbourhoods of emergencies such as fires, becoming a cultural fixture of rural areas for many decades... Originally, in order to distinguish one subscriber from another on a party line, operators implemented a different ringing cadence for each subscriber, such as two short rings, or one short ring followed by a long ring. Each subscriber heard the ringing sequence and recognized their own to answer the call. Subscribers were able to listen in on other subscribers' calls. Frequently ringing phones were an annoyance, and more selective ringing methods were introduced using various technologies. Especially effective on two-party lines was the distinction between tip party and ring party. Each telephone bell, rather than being connected across tip and ring as usual, was connected from one wire to local ground. Thus only the selected station in a two party line would ring... In the local-battery system of the early cranked magneto phones, the phone's own battery powered its transmitter as well as the receiver of the called phone. If too many phones were off-hook and listening, the additional receivers would load down the transmitter's battery with a voltage so low that no phone could receive an intelligible signal. With party-line service, particularly if there were more than two subscribers on the line, it was often necessary to complete a long-distance call through the operator to identify and correctly bill the calling party. In some cases, the calling party would misidentify themselves in an attempt to send the bill to another party...