I had a couple of friends growing up who still had party lines at their houses. You always had to be careful what you said because you knew someone would be listening in.
We had a party line, the other “party” would just leave the phone off the hook, so it was a pain to use. They might have listened to phone calls, too, but it was more the just using the phone that was the problem…
Used to be a pain having to wire up the phones for 4 & 8-party line ringing, too. Took a little tube wired into the phone, so you only heard your phone’s ring and one other on 8-party lines. One long ring or two short rings, depending, would tell you it was a call for you. So you didn’t hear the other 6 peoples’ rings, but they might still be using the line when you picked up your receiver to make a call…hang up and wait.4-party lines, you heard only your own ring.In California, they all started going away in the 70s when modular plugs came into service and everything went to private lines (as far as Pacific Telephone, anyway).
listmom about 11 years ago
I had a couple of friends growing up who still had party lines at their houses. You always had to be careful what you said because you knew someone would be listening in.
starfighter441 about 11 years ago
And if you wanted to call someone on the same party line, you had to do some weird ritual as I recall.
knitkitty about 11 years ago
We had a party line, the other “party” would just leave the phone off the hook, so it was a pain to use. They might have listened to phone calls, too, but it was more the just using the phone that was the problem…
snugharborman-catalog about 11 years ago
Used to be a pain having to wire up the phones for 4 & 8-party line ringing, too. Took a little tube wired into the phone, so you only heard your phone’s ring and one other on 8-party lines. One long ring or two short rings, depending, would tell you it was a call for you. So you didn’t hear the other 6 peoples’ rings, but they might still be using the line when you picked up your receiver to make a call…hang up and wait.4-party lines, you heard only your own ring.In California, they all started going away in the 70s when modular plugs came into service and everything went to private lines (as far as Pacific Telephone, anyway).