r/otr • u/WhatHaveYouGeorge • 3d ago
Question about phone operators
I was listening to Sorry, Wrong Number (the Barbara Stanwyck version) and there's a scene where Leona was talking to some other woman on the phone and they are interrupted several times by the phone operator. Do operators listen in on your calls? How do they know when your time is up? Also, how do they know when the caller has deposited the correct amount of change? Is there some sort of mechanism in the pay phones or do they rely on the honour system?
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u/Superb_Yak7074 3d ago edited 6h ago
I have only heard the Agnes Moorhead versions and I don’t recall her talking to any women except the operator and later her supervisor.
At any rate, operators would always cut in to tell the caller that more money was needed or they had to hang up the call. I don’t believe they were listening in on the calls, just alerting callers based on some trigger that came in to them when paid-for time was nearly used up.
The phones were set up so each type of coin made a different sound. That way, you couldn’t get away with adding 3 nickels (15 cents) when the charge was actually 3 quarters (75 cents)
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u/WhatHaveYouGeorge 2d ago
Did this mean you had to insert one coin at a time? These answers are all very cool BTW, I love learning about these little historical facts that would never be found in history books
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u/Superb_Yak7074 2d ago
Yes, each coin was inserted separately—nickels, dimes, and quarters—and you had to make sure you had a good supply of change on hand if you wanted to make a lengthy call.
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u/owdbr549 3d ago
My mother was an operator in a relatively small town where they literally had a row of operators that connected calls for people. According to her, for a juicy call they listened in, and if the call was very good they would signal the other operators to plug in to listen. I particularly remember her talking and laughing about a popular doctor having interesting talks with his girlfriends.
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u/MisterMisterYeeeesss 3d ago
Operators could listen in on calls, yes. In the case of long distance calls, operators would warn you that your three minutes were up. Since some percentage of calls were operator-assisted (and all long distance ones were) the operators HAD to listen in at least initially to make sure you connected. Phone technology evolved of course, but the coin phones made a tone that the operators could recognize when a coin was deposited (you can hear a chime in some movies when this happens), and eventually it became more electronically driven. In the 70s (maybe late 60s too) phones operated using control tones. If you knew the frequency, and/or had a small tape recorder, you could play the tones into the phone's microphone and get free calls, etc. One of them, the 2600Hz tone was especially well-known, even lending its name to the "phreaker" magazine, "2600"; it's still around today.