George Grapman <sfgeorge@paccbell.net> wrote in news:eoYVj.3501$3O7.3272
@newssvr19.news.prodigy.net:

> There have been some advantages. When I first moved west I would
look
> at my clock before making a long distance call as rates dropped at 5
> p.m. and again at 11.I made most of my non-business calls on weekends.
> I used to be in the phone card business ands,of course, at one time
> the only cards were AT&T.
>

The Bells did everything they could to prevent ham radio operators from
connecting their ham radios to the phone system. Then, when that didn't
work, they got with their FCC buddies to make sure most any call was
against FCC regulations. It's still that way, even today.

Back in the days you're talking about, we'd make a collect, person-to-
person, long distance call to Mr Melvin Schultz to the ham's house phone
we wanted to get on our favorite 75 meter frequency, 3903 Khz. Melvin,
of course, didn't exist and was never home to take the call, and the Bell
operator terminated the call, but not before alerting the ham the call
was to that someone wanted him on the air.

Sometimes, this scam backfired. Someone would call you and forget to
make it COLLECT so YOU'd have to pay if you accepted. The usual response
to those not-collect calls was, "This is Melvin Schultz, who's that
calling? Hello? Hello?".....which would cost the caller about $5/second
for the person-to-person long distance scam, operator-assisted (Miss
Tomlin of the Telephone Company) call. Of course, the joke would be all
over 3903 Khz most of the night ribbing the caller for the faux
pas...until something else diverted their attention or they were too
drunk to talk any more...(c;

73 DE W4CSC

Anybody ever play with a Blue Box?