Trucking Lore: Calling cards and pocket dialers.

This is the first of a series of posts about things which used to be common in trucking, but no longer exist. The time frame for this is from roughly when the Bell System was being broken up in the 1980's, to the time when actual CELL phones became common and affordable (say 1980-2000, roughly).

Before this time, there had been 1-800 numbers since at least some time in the 1960's, but long-distance calling was VERY expensive, especially if you were using pay phones (like, with $10 worth of quarters...), or reversing the charges. Once 800 numbers came around, telephones became a very common fixture at truckstop restaurant tables, so that drivers could call their dispatch or their road service / safety numbers. But still, calling home was expensive, and something you could not afford to do daily.

At some point in the 1980's, Sprint came out with the calling card; you opened up an account, they sent you a card with a 16-digit number and an 800 number you could call. You dialed that number, entered your 16 digit code, then dialed your 10 digit phone number (no "1" prefix), and could call home for about 1/4 the price of what the "baby Bells" were then charging. They would bill you at the end of the month This would ONLY work on touch-tone phones.

But dialing THAT many numbers was annoying, and left a lot of room for errors. Also, large parts of New England still had dial phones. Enter the pocket dialer; a small pocket-sized device with a typical-looking phone keypad, and a memory (mine had room for 5 numbers). Pick up a phone, hold the dialer to the mouthpiece, press memory #1, and it dialed the Sprint number. When prompted for your card id#, press memory #2, and it send the 16 digit number. Then when prompted for the number you want to call, press memory #3 for you home number, and there you are. I also used it to dial my dispatcher number directly (memory #4), and dispatch's 800 Canadian number (memory #5).

Of course, this led to some truckstop phones trying to block the long-distance carrier numbers, which led to blowback against the mostly small truckstops that did this, and a lot of shaming of those truckstop owners on trucking papers and periodicals of the time. Perhaps a few old-timers could tell you about hat...