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Posted by Wes Leatherock on September 6, 2008, 11:39 pm
> That would have been an MTS unit, they were made by GE or Motorola,
> later when dials were added the were IMTS phone. The IMTS you could
> dial out like a regular phone and had dial tone. The olde MTS units
> you reached an operator. One of the GTE vehicles that I drove had
> one and it was very interesting since phone were very rare; just
> doctors and attorneys had them, maybe a few movie stars.
In about 1950 or 1951 The Daily Oklahoman, Oklahoma City,
Oklahoma, had one of the manual units. I seem to recall the telephone
number was WJ 5-9794 (it's been a long time ago; that may not be the
exact number but it was in that format--WJ N-NNNN.) This was for use
by reporters on assigment who need the ability to call in from the
location of a news story directly into the newspaper. The car with
the phone was assigned to a reporter who needed it.
I remember one night when I was covering an escaped leopard from
the Oklahoma City Zoo and reported in various reports and rumors. And
sometimes the desk would get reports and rumors, too, and ask me to
call some source and check them out, as well as talk to the police and
deputies that were also out on the hunt in the same area I was.
Very interesting assignment. This went on for two and three
days, and many citizens were out on their own (including at night)
searching for the escaped beast. My observation that there was a lot
more hazard from the volunteers out blundering around with their
firearms in what were then rural areas of Oklahoma County and into
adjoining counties than from the leopard, but in fact there were no
injuries from the posses.
It was a very useful newsgathering tool, and very unusual in
those days. The Associated Press reporter that was out on the hunt,
too, borrowed my phone once or twice to check out a report he had
heard of.
An operator at the long distance board was assigned to handle
calls from these phones (I don't think there were enough of these
phones for that to be full-time assignment).
Interestingly, the city desk had a toll terminal (L.D. 419, as I
recall) that terminated on a desk right behind the city editor, not
just for the mobile phone traffic but for various callers who had been
given the number for direct connection to the city desk. (It was not
used for rewrite, just for administrative purposes, since there was no
provision for a rewrite man to get on the line. For that, you needed
to call L.D. 343 which reached several toll terminals that had
appearances on the mewspaper's PBX.
Wes Leatherock
wleathus@yahoo.com
wesrock@aol.com
***** Moderator's Note *****
Wes, please tell us what "Toll terminal" means in this context: were
they dedicated lines to a toll operator, or something else? TIA.
Bill Horne
Temporary Moderator
Please put [Telecom] at the end of your subject line, or I may never
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> later when dials were added the were IMTS phone. The IMTS you could
> dial out like a regular phone and had dial tone. The olde MTS units
> you reached an operator. One of the GTE vehicles that I drove had
> one and it was very interesting since phone were very rare; just
> doctors and attorneys had them, maybe a few movie stars.