Tim Vasquez
EF5
- Joined
- Dec 4, 2003
- Messages
- 3,411
For data on the road, we used acoustic couplers, a device that strapped onto pay phones and received data
I will raise my hand for actually trying this on May 16, 1999 on a pay phone near Snyder, Oklahoma. It didn't work, though... the pay phone was a real piece of crap. In fact don't get me started on all the godawful phones that fly-by-night COCOTs were putting up in the mid/late 1990s, which had bad audio quality and illegally prevented me in places like Altus and Eastland from accessing my carrier of choice. Glad those days are over and I hope those companies have all been liquidated. My acoustic coupler only seemed to work well when the pay phone had a name brand on it like Southwestern Bell or GTE. Seeing something like LCZ Communications on the nameplate pretty much insured I'd be going visual on the chase.
I'll buy a beer for anyone who actually used an acoustic coupler on a chase after 1999!
Tim