Remember When: Phone calls have come quite a long way

Sometimes, it can take a cellphone user longer to scroll down a list of familiar phone numbers than it does to complete the call.

In some ways, things seemed much easier in the past.

For instance, if you lived in Freeport in the early 1950s and wanted to call the high school office — then located on Fourth Street — you simply had to dial a “4.”

No “Press 1 for English,” no “listen carefully, our menu has changed.” Just a “4” would do.

After years of needing to contact a local, live operator to plug in a call request on a massive switchboard, direct dialing came to Alle-Kiski Valley residents on June 22, 1952.

Each community had its own two-letter prefix to enable residents to call others in the 412 area code. (Yes, area code 412.)

The letters actually corresponded to one of the 10 numbers on the phone keypad, just as they remain today. Two letters were used to start a telephone exchange because it was thought that would make phone numbers easier to remember.

For New Kensington, Arnold and the growing township of Lower Burrell, a caller first would dial “ED” for Edison, then the other five digits.

In the Tarentum area, it was “AC” for Academy; Springdale was “BR” for Broad. Other examples were “VI” for Victor in Leechburg and “GR” for Grover in the Apollo area.

In rural areas, there were party lines where one telephone line would service multiple households.

Someone could pick up the phone to make a call, and a neighbor would be in the middle of a conversation with another caller. The caller would ask how long the other “party” expected to be on the line. Somehow, things usually worked out.

The most dramatic change in local dialing came in 1998 when, as the 412 area code began to run out of phone numbers, a 724 area code was formed to service a ring around Pittsburgh, while 412 numbers were in or closer to Pittsburgh. Harmar and Oakmont are on the border.

Now, everyone has to dial 10 digits — even if you’re calling your neighbor across the street.

Cellphones come along

While cellphones are a major part of American culture today, the first handheld cellular phone call was made on April 3, 1973, by Motorola engineer Martin Cooper.

Who did he call? His rival, Joel Engel of Bell Labs, who was working on the same type of device.

The first-of-its-kind was a 2½-pound brick-like object.

The invention languished for about 10 years because it was cost prohibitive.

In 1984, Radio Shack in Lower Burrell’s Hillcrest Shopping Center was an Alle-Kiski Valley pioneer in cellphone sales. The first cellphone was a Motorola DynaTAC that took 10 hours to charge, allowed 30 minutes of talk time and stored 30 numbers.

But it was hard finding 30 people who could afford the phone. It cost $4,000 — or the equivalent of $11,068 today.

As more manufacturers entered the realm, the cost came down considerably.