Do party lines exist anymore? I remember when you'd dial a number you could hear someone else's?

Question

conversations on the line. Glad technology has taken care of that!

Answer 1

In some rural towns that have a private phone line, there are still party lines.

One example of a community linked by party line is Adams' Pack Station, high in the mountains above Los Angeles. Big Santa Anita Canyon, near Sierra Madre, CA, has 81 rustic cabins, a group camp and a pack station that all communicate by magneto-type crank phones. One ring is for the pack station, two rings for the camp and three rings means all cabins pick up.

As noted above, some people have discovered that if several people dial into the same line at the same time, and use their conference call or other paid service, they can talk to a large number of people at the same time. This is not the traditional type of party line.

The kids in our neighboorhood also discovered, by accident, that they can buy an intercom system at Radio Shack an talk to each other from house to house if they are all tuned into the same frequency.

Answer 2

I don't know if party lines exist any more. They were lines that people shared; different number, same line. What was really FUN were crossed lines. Remember them? It usually happened when there was a big change, like phone numbers going from alpha-numeric to numeric only. There would be hundreds of people on the line screaming their phone numbers. I got in a lot of trouble! haha

Answer 3

Oh party lines were a nightmare. I never personally had to live with on. But, they use to be at other peoples places. I am glad they are gone.

Pillow Talk was a cute movie about them.

I wouldn't doubt they may still exist in some rural place.

Answer 4

I was going to give some flip answer about not having land lines anymore, ergo, no party lines. Then I read Y!arnlady's response. How interesting! and I remembered many umpty-lebben years ago I was driving through Needles, Calif., and stopped to use a pay phone. It was a crank type. I thought I was back one of in Mary Tyler Moore's shows or "My Little Margie."

Answer 5

Another great question. You had several people on the same line. I forget exactly how the ring system worked but if you picked up the phone while someone else on your party line was talking, you couldn't call out. Those were the days of the telephone operator that Lily Tomlin parodies so well when she does Ernestine... "One ringy dingy...."

Answer 6

They don't exist where I live (suburb of Chicago), however, they may still be some somewhere in the U.S.A.

I remember when my parents had one when I was a little girl and how happy my Mother was when we had our own line and didn't have to share.

Answer 7

I haven't thought of party lines for years...but I believe that there used to be *more* than 2 users on one line sometimes.

Answer 8

haha, my grandmother told me that when she was young (in South Dakota during WWII) she complained that the small number of Germans--it was mainly an Irish town--would always speak German over the party lines and it annoyed the entire town. Haha, different times, different times.......

Answer 9

Unfortunately they're alive and kicking. Stay up and watch T.V. after 3 AM or look in the back of a Cosmo magazine.

Answer 10

yeah...i was like 4 or something when i picked up the phone at my grandpas house and i heard some other people talking. that was kinda cool.