On 13 Nov 2004 at 8:13, Jim Isbell wrote: > Speaking of cults. did you ever hear of the cult of folks that > communicated over the telephone on a bussy signal? I tried it once > and it worked!! > > I cant remember just how it worked but I think you called a number > that was bussy and then you listened between the beeps for the voice > of another person. The other person had also called the busy number > and the two of you were then connected and could chat between the > beeps. That may not be exact, its been 10 years since I tried it. > > What I never figured out was how the other person knew what number to > call, maybe it didnt matter as long as you got a busy signal. It was > sort of like a blind CQ, you never knew who you would get, just some > mysterious voice that appeared between the beeps.
This was VERY big around 1967-1970. We met many girls that way - grin! Everyone knew which exchange to call and the numbers that worked were all in the range of 9199, 9299, .... 9899. You found too many people on one number and so then you would just try another one of them! There were hundreds of young people on there all yelling, trying to silence the others and mostly giving out their own numbers so someone could hang up and call each other. There were also many pranks pulled on there!
