TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Re: What About Areas Where Alphabet is Not Like Ours

Re: What About Areas Where Alphabet is Not Like Ours

Neal McLain (nmclain@annsgarden.com)
Fri, 09 Feb 2007 01:59:17 -0500

Joe Tibiletti <joetib@cox.net> wrote:

> I raise the question, what does the telephone dial look
> like in areas with alphabets different fron our own, such
> as Cairo, Egypt, or Beijing, China, or Oslo, Norway?

Here are a couple of foreign dials:
Sweden ...
http://tinyurl.com/2dmsta
http://tinyurl.com/2h7jde

Note that the Swedish dial is offset one pulse from the NANP dial. 1
pulse=0; 2 pulses=1, ... 10 pulses=9. But no letters, so the alphabet
issue wasn't a problem.

Denmark ...
http://tinyurl.com/27gko3
http://tinyurl.com/2byb87

The "9" on the Danish dial corresponds to the 27th and 28th letters of
the 29-letter Danish alphabet.
http://users.cybercity.dk/~nmb3879/tree.html The embossed design in
the center of the dial is the "National Coat of Arms" (as
distinguished from the "Royal Coat of Arms").
http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/dk).html

> I understand that until about 5 years ago there were
> some crank up telephones in use -- in West Virginia --
> with telephone numbers that had 4N-1L-2N. Anyone got
> sharing on this one?

That seems unlikely. I'd be interested in knowing the source of that
story.

Numbers in the format you describe (which here on TD we'd write as
4D-1L-2D) were rural party lines served by manual offices.

The "4D" is the line number; it could be a 1-, 2-, 3-, or 4-digit
number. The single letter indicates that it was a party line; for
rural multiparty lines, it was usually "F" (for "farm") or "R" (for
"rural"). The last two digits indicated the ring cadence. Case in
point: my grandfather's phone in Steuben County Indiana used to be
59F03.

> There appears to be a return to two party lines in some areas
> because of shortage of lines. e.g . Round Rock, Texas, north of
> Austin, TX.

That also seems unlikely. I'd be interested in knowing the source of
that story too.

Neal McLain

Post Followup Article Use your browser's quoting feature to quote article into reply
Go to Next message: Mr Joseph Singer: "Re: What About Areas Where Alphabet is Not Like Ours?"
Go to Previous message: Jack Hamilton: "Re: What About Areas Where Alphabet is Not Like Ours?"
TELECOM Digest: Home Page