[Scan-DC] Off-topic, Verizon to end time and weather services

[Doug Kitchener]

Hah - good question!  Before we went to ten-digit calling, the weather was WE6-1212 (936-1212), and the time was TI4-2525 (864-2525).  For many years, you could dial the weather by dialing WE6 and any four digits, but couldn't do that with time for some reason... this area was one of the first in the nation, if not the first, to go to ten-digit calling, and then both of those were (still are) 301 numbers... I remember trying one of them once with a 703 area code and it didn't work... 

I got off on a tangent here - to answer your question, they are still the same, 301/936-1212 and 301/864-2525... but not for long!  Dunno if they will work from some of the newer exchanges by using those area codes...

***************

More phone trivia at no extra charge... sometime before I was born (!) (and after the invention of the telephone!), phone #s in DC itself had only six digits.  My grandparents (this is my Dad's story, not mine!) had one of the first telephones in the city, their number was Potomac 3, later Potomac 0003.  When the added the seventh digit to the exchanges, it was actually the third number in the string of seven, and the number was determined by what number corresponded with the third letter of the name of the exchange.  So, Tuckerman became TU2 (the "c" in Tuckerman corresponding to the 2 on the dial, or TUC), Republic became RE7 (REP), Dupont became DU7, Woodley became WO6 (WOO), etc.  So, if your phone # had been Tuckerman 3227 (my grandparents, again), it became Tuckerman 2, or TU2 (later 882) 3227.

(The White House was 456-1414, but I can't remember if there was a mnemonic for that, or what it was...)

Funny, my aunt and uncle in Minneapolis had a Tu number, but it was Tuxedo, not Tuckerman...

If I'm bugging anyone by being off topic, let me know and I'll stop!

To: oldsdoug at hotmail.com; scan-dc at mailman.qth.net
From: ehoehn at earthlink.net
Subject: Re: [Scan-DC] Off-topic, Verizon to end time and weather services
Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2011 18:31:04 -0500

What is the number here.  In St. Louis it was 314-321-2522.  Not sure if that one is still there.

Eric