[BC] putting phone calls on the air

[Peter Smerdon]

Donna wrote:

> So why did the FCC insist on those loud beeps? And when were they done 
> away with?  I thought that perhaps there a pick-up problem with early 
> microphones, such that callers sounded technologically distorted... 
> maybe that was whe the FCC didn't want calls live on the air?  These 
> days, of course, you just tell people they are being put on the air 
> live--  "Joe from Kokomo,  thanks for calling. You're live on the 
> [insert name of talk host here] Show."  Why couldn't they have done it 
> like that way back when?
> 
Here in Australia, it was a mindset thing. The Government were 
facilitating, through legislation and via the Govt-owned telephone 
company, the recording of people's telephone conversations.
It wasn't just for radio stations to put callers to air - newspaper 
journalists, radio journalists, stockbrokers, and a range of other 
professionals would now be recording peoples' calls.
They wanted to provide a warning to people that they were being recorded.

Interesting you mention distortion on the phones of the day. That was 
the old carbon microphone ("transmitter"), where the carbon granules 
would pack together, output volume would go down, and distortion go up.
I still remember telling callers to give the handset microphone a "good 
whack" to temporarily fix the problem. The idea was to free up the 
carbon granules, as the principle of operation relied on the granules 
being able to move in sync with the soundwave. That "fix" got some 
interesting reactions.

Here the PMG's Dept (then it was the only telco) developed a 
better-sounding dynamic microphone replacement for the carbon 
transmitter, which was on limited issue for "important" people who radio 
stations may want to interview frequently by telephone (politicians, 
business and church leaders etc).
The radio station would request it, and a PMG tech would go out and 
install it.
Of course, that was in the days when the only phone you could use (in 
Australia) was the one you rented from the PMG with your phone line.
It was black bakelite, with a rotary dial, and a handset that weighed a 
ton. It was hard-wired via a terminal block to the building cabling, to 
discourage experimentation.

Cheers,
-
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Peter Smerdon.

Radio 3mp - Easy Listening
sen-1116  - Let's Talk Sport

Melbourne, Australia.
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