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Posted by John Stahl on September 3, 2008, 5:36 pm
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John.Dearing@VeriYOURPANTSzon.NET wrote:
>hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:
> >
> > Back in the 1960s Bell sponsored the local weather forecase on the
> > evening TV news, using a real college physicist (not a blowdry). At
> > the end of each broadcast he would flip over a little sign with the
> > phone number, reminder viewers they could call it at any time to get
> > the weather.
>
>
>I believe you are talking about the old WFIL-TV (Channel 6) now WPVI
>that had Dr. Francis Davis as the weatherman.
>
>
>This would have been in the very early 60's. I was born in 1955 and
>remember the tag line...
>
>
>"For the recorded forecast at any hour of the day or night, just call
>WE6-1212.".....
From what I recall, some time later a family owned company in WI, made a
deal of some kind with the Teleco's to take this idea of weather
forecasting into just about every locale in the US on a commercial basis.
They purchased, in just about every telephone exchange, the (weather)
WE-6-1212 number, and made it available with some specialized equipment, at
a monthly charge, to "voice" these service for any business or whom-ever
wanted to have their "name" sponsoring these local dial-up's. I knew of car
dealer's in up-state NY and of all sorts of other services sponsoring local
systems throughout the Northeast.
Most of these boxes (in later years produced digital derived voices; in
earlier were analog with stored "phrases" to speak the words) were locally
placed on leased phone lines with the weather (WE-6_1212) number for people
to call in to get up-to-date weather info (and of course the "commercials"
from the sponsor's!). The boxes were remotely accessed to update the
weather forecasts, depending upon what "service" the sponsor paid for, and
most boxes had local weather instruments feeding them with data so that
local temp, barometric readings, etc., were available to be "spoken" to the
caller. The voices used (an option of either a male or a female) were the
same voice of the (human) persons' who made most all of the "standardized"
voices used by the Telcos - example: "The number you've reached is no
longer in service....")
This telecom equipment supplier also makes the switch (#5ESS) mounted voice
announcers which "voice" the "standardized" voice (intercept, special
feature, etc.) announcements for local telcos.
However, with the advent of the computer, many of these local based systems
have been removed (I checked the Syracuse - 315AC - line and it is out of
service) as one could surmise that this same info is available on-line with
much more data (WeatherBug is one of them) such as video feeds to show what
local conditions looks like (which can't be done with a land-line but can
be accessed on a cell phone with Internet access!)
John Stahl
Telecom/Data Consultant
Aljon Enterprises.
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