I have some pretty weird ones… As I wake my mind starts thinking. The theme might have been spawned by I dream I awoke from, or something that had happened recently.
This morning I woke up thinking about ship to shore radios and stealing calling card numbers.
I know where it came from. Last night, I was over a friends house for dinner. Our other friend came over also, he brought his girls with him, because is was custody weekend. The first one had bought a TV today, it was a decent sized LCD. Of course we needed to discuss this purchase and inquire when he won the lottery. But the discussion turned into a little known company that makes 75% of the LCD screens on the market. Most of what they make is re-branded… LG Electronics
One the girls mentioned that she used to have an LG phone.
So I woke up thinking, what kind of phone did I have when I was 15? None, there was no such things as cell phones. The closest thing to a cell phone was a ship to shore radio. When I was younger, my family always had a boat, I lived on long island sound. Late in the day when things got boring, I would turn on the ship to shore radio and listen to people’s conversations. It wasn’t like a cell phone, you couldn’t connect directly. You got on the radio, and listened… I think there was only a couple of channels dedicated to ship to shore. So you waited until the frequency was free, then called the operator.
Boater: “this is (boat name) to the marine operator”
Marine Operator: “marine operator, how can I help you”
Boater: “I would like to place a call to 555-1212”
Marine Operator: “Calling card number, please”
Boater: “123-456-789”
Marine Operator: “One moment please…. Ring, ring, ring”
And the call was put through.
Being in my teens and never having a quarter to my name, I made a list of all the calling card numbers I heard over the air. They would come in handy when you came up to a pay phone.
This reminded me of a bicycle trip to Nantucket and The Vineyard, where I stayed in youth hostels. Somebody had a cassette tape recorder and the sounds on the tape were quarters going into a telephone. Remember back in the day when you put money in a pay phone you could hear a beep or click when you put your money in? Well by recording that sound and playing it back accomplished the same effect.
You cannot do that anymore because telephone companies use out of band signaling (non audible) but before they changed over, maybe about 10 years or so ago we made a modern day version of the cassette tape recorder. You know those greeting cards that have a sound chip in them, so you can record your voice in the card? Yes, so we tore apart a card for the sound chip and neatly packaged it into an empty cigarette pack. Of course it worked… but since then the system has changed and it doesn’t work like that anymore.
And that’s the kind of things I think of when I am waking up.
Posted by busterthedawg 