I got a great old thing at a garage sale, bought a new ribbon for it - and can't figure out how to 'install' it. We're talking ribbon, not cartridge, lol. I know, I can probably find it on youtube.
My nine yr old granddaughter asked for a typewriter for Christmas. This Meme found one on marketplace! She also asked for a cassette player, we'll, Amazon to the rescue and thanks to Ebay for Jerry Clower and Ray Stevens cassette tapes. Shes an old soul that wishes we could rewind the world a little. I have to agree with her.
JERRY CLOWER--really? How unique! I get the Ray Stevens "like" though!! Good for her...embracing "yesteryear". 9 years - my how I wish I could rewind to spend the growing up years again with my 3 PA grandsugars--they are all "big people" now! ENJOY, friend!
Thanks for the Bio. Kids learn what you teach them and they are not exposed to the cartoons and shows of today. Little House on the Prairie, the Waltons, Beverly Hillbillies and Andy Griffin are good shows. We don't need the garbage tv of today.
That's the kind of shows we raised our sons on - unfortunately, my grandsugars started out wholesome but ended up on YouTube "influencer" channels that really concerned me. I told my youngest son about their oldest (a daughter) being interested in a program that dealt with teen age suicide issues--and he forbade her to watch it anymore--then she tried to "finagle" Granna to let her watch it--I said "no way"--you don't need to fill your mind with that garbage!!
I have three phones near what I call my weir wall or history wall. One is the old oak kind to hold up the black cone wind up the lever. Another is a black one from the 30s or 40s that you pick up and ask for operater, and the third is a green 79s with a dial. I love to hear my grandchildren play with it. Such a satisfying sound. And of course long term memory from childhood means I gave them my phone number from when I was a kid.
P.s. I also have a 30s radio on that wall, a 30s cabinet radio and record player, and a 30s typewriter.
Jeezusss the error rate and time it took to correct tho. Mis-dials were costly in finger skin. Especially if there were lots of zeros in the number. Sigh. I remember them too! The best part was that those old phone 📞 were amazing weapons you could really do some damage with! Easy to locate during a potential home invasion.
The one on the wall in my mom’s kitchen in the 60’s had an extra long cord and she would use it to chase us out of the kitchen when we bothered her on the phone. Threat only. No actual contact but you could never be sure it wouldn’t come down on your head. My dad got the special cord at a business store. He wanted her to keep cooking while she talked. She would get involved in conversations and burn dinner.
Yes, we used to stretch the long cord from the single home phone into other rooms to talk privately! Haha, I always knew my sister was home when I saw the cord stretched to her bedroom.
My parents had a wall phone in the kitchen and then a little "princess" style phone in their bedroom. Occasionally I would use the wall phone to call a friend, but I never did any phone chats at all...no privacy in the kitchen anyway!
Most kids would be screwed if we ever had to use a rotary phone. I watched some YouTube video of parents asking their children how to use them. They were clueless.
I tell my kids that if the SHTF, they need to keep me around for at least a year since I know how to work manual tools, can identify edible plants, have a basic idea how to garden and raise chickens, and know how to read an actual map. They will be screwed without me.
I laughed at your comment because it's so true. I've been teaching mine how garden, use tools, troubleshoot and repair cars, forage, shoot guns which they enjoy, and more. We live out in a very rural area. It sounds like you are too. It's a different way of life out here vs the city.
Reminds me of that book Fahreinheit 450 - remember the "Book People"??? We'll become the "Typewriter People" or the "Analog Phone People" or the "Garden People"...works for "moi"!
My daughter wouldn’t allow her little boys to get a watch or have digital clocks until they were able to tell time on an analog clock. And they both could tell time by the time they were in preschool.
A brilliant but brain-deficient woman developed ever-more-difficult clock exercises to fix her brain. Barbara Arrowsmith, she wrote The Woman Who Changed Her Brain. And developed a program around it that is taught to struggling kids with great success - The Arrowsmith Program. Smart daughter you have there, clocks are an excellent brain exercise.
I probably should have done this. My daughter continues to insist that she "can't" read time off analog clocks and only checks her phone (though I'm 99% sure it's actually just because she's lazy and doesn't want to think enough to figure out which hours the hands are sitting between).
My daughter who is 32 yo, always very intellectual and graduated college with a 4.0 average was never able to master the analog clock. She’s somewhat embarrassed about it. It seems like maybe we missed a developmental window and waited too long to teach her 🤷♀️
I was subjected to my Medicare "annual wellness" exam last week. (Mostly questions to test you for cognitive decline so they can call Adult Protective Services and have you evicted from your home.) One test I had to draw an analog clock face and then the hands showing 10 minutes past 10. I wonder how long until everybody fails that test because they were never taught to read an analog clock?
I asked about it once, but they said you can't discuss your 'issues' at that time, it's not that kind of appt. I'd have to make a separate appt to discuss my thyroid. Never mind. Now I'm glad I never gave medicare that much info.
I have one in my office--it's a replica of a piece of adobe stone from the Hopis and there's a Kokopelli at the "half past" position. I enjoy telling the time looking at my "Koko" Klock!!
We kept an old beige colored rotary dial phone in the tack room at the barn, attached to a bell-ringer on the outside wall, so we could hear it even to the far corners of the pastures.
I used to give riding lessons. One little girl, upon seeing the phone sitting on the table, asked, "What is that?"
Me: "What is what?"
Little girl: "That. One the table."
Me: "The phone?"
Little girl: "That's not a phone - it doesn't have any buttons!"
I had her lift the receiver so she could hear the dial tone (today she wouldn't even know what a dial tone is!!!) and showed her how to dial her phone number. The 9s and 0s were a bit tricky! 😂🤣😂🤣
Still have the phone and bell-ringers - just need a new barn in which to hook them up! Sigh.
We still have a landline in Idaho, but the government has identified up to 50 homes in our VERY RURAL area that are disadvantaged because of our poor internet speeds and therefore giving our local phone company a super deal on a loan to bring fiber optic cable into our homes, invading us and making our DSL obsolete. We can still have a "landline" but it will be controlled over a modem, which will be tied to the fiberoptic. If the power has gone out in the past, the phone always worked. Wouldn't happen now, because the modem is powered by electricity. And we will have NO CHOICE. Not to mention that it is an extra 20 bucks to have a landline. I am like "Eff them, I am NOT paying for their shit that is invading my house." They are on the splicing end of it and it hasn't happened full scale yet, but it is getting close. Soon, there will be no place to hide. And...might I add, the homes that are targeted and inhabitants within are very law abiding with eyes wide open.
I'm a legacy DSL customer because nothing else is available in the foothills where I live. For 34 years I had a landline, and then about 15 years ago when ATT offered DSL service up here, it ran through the same land line. Recently I decided to cut costs (they were charging $69 for the land land and $59 for the very lousy DSL which they still have but don't maintain very well. If I'm lucky I get 3 Mpbs, sometimes 5. They told me they just "couldn't" separate the two services. So I filed an FCC report (in which I said ATT was forcing me to buy a phone service I don't use) about it, and lo and behold, less than 2 weeks later they must have leaned on ATT to meet my request to have a DSL only line at a cheaper rate. ATT got on it and kept contacting me from their top offices, so for unknown reasons FCC must have really been on their case. I even got FCC replies telling me to notify them if things weren't resolved! It took about 2 weeks for ATT to sort it out, but I just got a new bill and instead of being $ 59 if was for $10, which is more or less what their slow service is worth.
The bad thing is that since I have a "legacy" DSL line (they will no longer install DSL for new customers up here) I've been told they can cancel it at anytime, and worse yet, there are no plans for installing fiber optic lines up here and nothing else is available either unless I install a hot spot type service all on my own...buying the modem and getting a signal from a cell tower.
All I can say is that I am gobsmacked at the near immediate action I got from the FCC. Why they were so efficient I'll never know.
Yep...lousy DSL, and 5 MBPS is faaast for where we are too. My bill is $70 for landline and internet. It will more than double for fiber optic internet and a 'landline'. That is total BS that I didn't ask for. I might just go with Starlink, just to see if they will lower my bill. We have a teeny phone company that makes their money off the government tit for installing phones where no phones have gone before, like a little town in the mountains of Idaho called Yellowpine. We live in FL part time and the noise is just awful ALL the time. Sirens, aircraft and the noise of streetlights and pollution it causes as well. There is just no getting away from the 'always on' feeling. Now you can't even go sit in your car to get away if it is a newer model because there is always something electrical buzzing it up inside us. My fridge drives me absolutely crazy with the constant hum. Now I sound totally crackerdog...haha.
I'm in the sticks too but my small ISP has a fiber running this way so they offered it to everyone in the area. I'm lucky to get 20mb where I live but I fell within range of the DSLAM. I can't go any higher. I also have to have the telephone service but it's for emergencies because the cell service is awful out here. I've actually used it more for faxing. I'm not sure if they offer Naked DSL aka dry loop DSL connection. It's 145 dollars. A friend of ours lives a litter further can only get dial up. 56k but she uses it and says it's painful to wait for pages to load. LOL They do offer Starlink where I'm at and it would be $120 month and $599 for hardware. The download speed is 25-50mb upload is 5mb
I wanted to keep my landline because it was the easiest way to find my cell phone, but the taxes on it were higher than the phone bill itself. It just made me too mad to tolerate.
Ha, another problem with living alone. You can use your computer to find your phone, dial your number from a website. I used it once, then realized that it wasn't smart to give my number to some unknown site. But nothing odd happened, no spam or anything. Now I just make myself look harder for it, reminds me not to just put it down anywhere.
There hasn't been TRUE land lines in our part of PA since about 2014! I had a digital land line but got rid of it when my business tanked earlier this year. I am now almost totally dependent on my S/S retirement income since losing the income from my sole proprietorship that I kept running successfully for over 23 years. I believe the Lord is telling me it's soon my time to "go home"--I'm ready!! This world is NOT my home...I'm just a'travelin' through. If heaven's not my home--then LORD--WHAT WILL I DO??? The angels beckon me through heaven's open door--and I can't feel at home in this world ANYMORE!!
Remember that old gospel tune--borrowed from the Ebenezer Baptist church congregants of yesteryear!!
I have several online friends who are very talented artists--would you send me your Tanager painting to my sharonabend@yahoo.com e-mail address, Karen?
BTW...I guess you're using a "smart"phone to make your comments, aren't you, Karen? Because I'm on my laptop and there aren't any "emoji" options on C & C group if you're using a 'puter rather than a "device". I'd love to insert some "emojis" once in awhile!
I use both, this afternoon I'm using my laptop and it's letting me use emojis. Wonder why you can't? and just to rub it in 🤷🏼♀️ Try Control, Command and the space bar.
I always think of Queen Elizabeth II when I see Corgis. I had a neighbor in Palm Springs who bred them--she would have at least 3 of them sauntering around the neighborhood at any given time. Very docile breed!! I fell in love with the Maltese breed about 35 years ago (a client of mine was a private breeder and he shared photos of his "pups" and I fell in instant "Malty dog heaven" love! But I never thought I'd have one because breeders charge upward of $1,500 for puppies. I was doing gig work at Petco and Petsmart for Blue Buffalo and learned about "dog rescue groups" and started searching online for a rescue Maltese. My first adoption was Maisy--a puppy mill breeder who had spent her whole doggie life in a cramped, dirty, wire cage on a miller "farm". What a precious, submissive doggie girl was my Maisy. I was privileged to have her sweetness in my life for 7 1/2 years. She left me in September of 2017. 1 month later, I adopted my second Maltese rescue--a male this time. Colby--who was a "gift" to a woman who didn't want him in the first place--so she never trained him or taught him how to be a true Malty doggie boy. It's been a "work in progress" for the past 6 years. He's finally becoming a REAL dog (he's lying beside me snoring in his doggie bed right now!).
Meshtastic is very useful for short-range, highly secure communication that is independent of an intermediary such as a phone company. Currently it’s mostly only accessible to geeks who can manage some small amount of technical complexity, but it holds a lot of potential, in my view.
We tried to keep one up here in the sticks for power outages but after waiting 3 times for century link to come up and make adjustments for lines they never showed and gave us the most ridiculous excuses. We fired them. $70 a month saved
Me too! Funny how when cell signal is bad and breaking up people then default to calling our landline. Our phone company last year made a big sell job push for us to get rid of it...nope not doing it. Their sales person clearly was not prepared for counter arguments to each of their "but, but, but..." points.
Well this is weird…. I tried to get rid of my landline and Cox Communication reps stated to get rid of the landline it was in a bundle and would cost 20.00 more a month.
Hubby and I would like to have a landline, less electromagnetic field. I'm sick of the "tech & science" that contributes to ill health. Keep your landline Kathleen! Now that would make a great T-shirt to wear in front of tpb.
Yes, it seems the BT signals aren't healthy either. And you have people walking around all day with BT earbuds. I have to wear hearing aids and they have BT. It can be paired with your TV which I don't watch. Or pair it to a phone which I barely get a signal for. And I my phone either with wired earbuds or speaker phone. Apparently, the biggest feature is using your phone to adjust the settings which you can do by holding certain buttons on the hearing aids. LOL In other words, it's useless for me. I hold the button down on one for 7 seconds to place them in airplane mode and it turns off the BT signal.
😂 I still have a landline that I use. It's very reliable and I feel it's important for emergencies being in the rural sticks. If I call into out of my area, I can be charged for long distance. 😂 I'm lucky to get a signal where I live. I still have to go outside to walk around and do a few circles to get a signal. I've gone through all the major carriers and Verizon was the best. T-Mobile was the worst. I now can use my cell phone with VoIP to make calls and send texts. The highest speed I can get is 20MBs and that's pushing it since I'm far from the DSLAM. I refuse to use a cell phone next to me. It has to be on speaker phone or use earbuds. Will never go to 5g either. I still remember the rotary dial and party lines. lol
We changed our home phone to a cell line quite a few years ago, but now I want to go back to a landline. Does anyone know how you do that? Just call ATT? Our cell line always crackles and drops calls.
If you want a landline - Spectrum will provide one for 19.99 a month and although it is tied to the modem and router, if you have another available phone jack in your house, then you can plug a landline phone into it and even in a power outage the phone works. I bought a princess phone on amazon for $19 brand new. Not a rotary phone but push button. Seems the rotary thing is not recognized any longer. But this is the way for anyone to go if you want a landline. I ditched the cell phone 2 years ago and never missed it once. The whole world was doing just fine without cell phones. People forget how it used to be.
Thank you, James. I will look into Spectrum. You are so right about the world doing just fine without cell phones. In fact, more and more I feel that the world was MUCH BETTER without them.
We haveATT and wanted that (in So Cal) and were told we could put a phone in the house but it would work like a cell phone. No more landlines issued for anyone.
Reading thru this thread, I bet Jeff Childers is shocked by how many if his tribe are low tech, or wish to be. Also, so many who live in far-flung areas.
And people make fun of me for still having a landline.
Wait long enough and everything comes back into style.
Waiting to break out that white disco leisure suit, circa 1978, Mr. Childers?
I bet so..."bust a move" as he said today! That brought back a memory or two. .😅
Young MC.
I don't know, I think baby blue is more his color, but definitely white shoes! 🤣
Hopefully that's the case with my 1998 kitchen...lol
I still have my Smith Corona - with "ribbon at the ready"!!
I gave away my old typewriters. Guess I’ll have to cut and paste letters out of magazines.
That's what kidnappers always did on old mystery movies--LOL!
My dad had one of those. With the correction ribbon
The correction ribbon activated when you hit the "Caps Lock" key! At least that the way one of my typewriters worked.
Exactly
I’ll never forget when word processors first came out. My secretary actually used White-out on the computer screen!
TOOO FUNNY!!!
I got a great old thing at a garage sale, bought a new ribbon for it - and can't figure out how to 'install' it. We're talking ribbon, not cartridge, lol. I know, I can probably find it on youtube.
Yeppir--what model is it, Kathy? Here's quite a few different typewriter models that all use the "regular ribbons" and not the cartridge ribbon: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=how+to+install+a+ribbon+on+an+old+style+typewriter&iax=videos&ia=videos&iai=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D6ssF5xfXflg
My nine yr old granddaughter asked for a typewriter for Christmas. This Meme found one on marketplace! She also asked for a cassette player, we'll, Amazon to the rescue and thanks to Ebay for Jerry Clower and Ray Stevens cassette tapes. Shes an old soul that wishes we could rewind the world a little. I have to agree with her.
JERRY CLOWER--really? How unique! I get the Ray Stevens "like" though!! Good for her...embracing "yesteryear". 9 years - my how I wish I could rewind to spend the growing up years again with my 3 PA grandsugars--they are all "big people" now! ENJOY, friend!
Here's a grand bio on Mr. Clower--I had no idea he was so well loved and his testimony was given at each of his performances! https://www.baptistpress.com/resource-library/news/baptist-layman-jerry-clower-top-country-comic-dies-at-71/
Thanks for the Bio. Kids learn what you teach them and they are not exposed to the cartoons and shows of today. Little House on the Prairie, the Waltons, Beverly Hillbillies and Andy Griffin are good shows. We don't need the garbage tv of today.
That's the kind of shows we raised our sons on - unfortunately, my grandsugars started out wholesome but ended up on YouTube "influencer" channels that really concerned me. I told my youngest son about their oldest (a daughter) being interested in a program that dealt with teen age suicide issues--and he forbade her to watch it anymore--then she tried to "finagle" Granna to let her watch it--I said "no way"--you don't need to fill your mind with that garbage!!
How many grandsugars do you have Karen?
5 ages are 11, 9, 4 and two 18 mo.
Oh--what fun!!! Are the twins identical or fraternal?
The little ones are nine days apart.
Not twins, boy from my daughter and girl from my son. He has four kids and she's just getting started. Homeschooling for all of them.
Like film.
I miss the rotary phones. It made it feel real important. I loved the sound of the phone.
I have three phones near what I call my weir wall or history wall. One is the old oak kind to hold up the black cone wind up the lever. Another is a black one from the 30s or 40s that you pick up and ask for operater, and the third is a green 79s with a dial. I love to hear my grandchildren play with it. Such a satisfying sound. And of course long term memory from childhood means I gave them my phone number from when I was a kid.
P.s. I also have a 30s radio on that wall, a 30s cabinet radio and record player, and a 30s typewriter.
Did you give them Mitchell 3-2788
Or did you upgrade to 643-2788?
😉 (boy, that was hard to write because I disguised the real number thinking I may have used it in a password at some time) 🤣
AMherst 6-2189. Boy howdy can't believe I've been using valuable brain cells for that tidbit for 70+ years!
🤣🤣🤣
Mine was 687-1989. Forever in my brain
Noo 688-1989...... dumb thumbs. Our poor pointer fingers were put out of a job by our thumbs
I just remembered my childhood 7 digit phone number from the 60's. 292 6628....I wonder if it still working--LOL!!
🤣 try it! You’ll have to put in an area code though!
You're cute!!! 717 - let me know if anyone answers--LOL!
sorry should say 70's
Nice collection. 👍
Jeezusss the error rate and time it took to correct tho. Mis-dials were costly in finger skin. Especially if there were lots of zeros in the number. Sigh. I remember them too! The best part was that those old phone 📞 were amazing weapons you could really do some damage with! Easy to locate during a potential home invasion.
The one on the wall in my mom’s kitchen in the 60’s had an extra long cord and she would use it to chase us out of the kitchen when we bothered her on the phone. Threat only. No actual contact but you could never be sure it wouldn’t come down on your head. My dad got the special cord at a business store. He wanted her to keep cooking while she talked. She would get involved in conversations and burn dinner.
Yes, we used to stretch the long cord from the single home phone into other rooms to talk privately! Haha, I always knew my sister was home when I saw the cord stretched to her bedroom.
Yes. A good weapon. I don't remember spending any time on the phone. Everything was in person. Good times. 😄
My parents had a wall phone in the kitchen and then a little "princess" style phone in their bedroom. Occasionally I would use the wall phone to call a friend, but I never did any phone chats at all...no privacy in the kitchen anyway!
Most kids would be screwed if we ever had to use a rotary phone. I watched some YouTube video of parents asking their children how to use them. They were clueless.
I tell my kids that if the SHTF, they need to keep me around for at least a year since I know how to work manual tools, can identify edible plants, have a basic idea how to garden and raise chickens, and know how to read an actual map. They will be screwed without me.
I laughed at your comment because it's so true. I've been teaching mine how garden, use tools, troubleshoot and repair cars, forage, shoot guns which they enjoy, and more. We live out in a very rural area. It sounds like you are too. It's a different way of life out here vs the city.
Skills can be bartered as well as products. Good to teach the younger generation.
Reminds me of that book Fahreinheit 450 - remember the "Book People"??? We'll become the "Typewriter People" or the "Analog Phone People" or the "Garden People"...works for "moi"!
Now ask those kids to tell you the time by looking at an analog clock.
My daughter wouldn’t allow her little boys to get a watch or have digital clocks until they were able to tell time on an analog clock. And they both could tell time by the time they were in preschool.
Smart mom. 👍
A brilliant but brain-deficient woman developed ever-more-difficult clock exercises to fix her brain. Barbara Arrowsmith, she wrote The Woman Who Changed Her Brain. And developed a program around it that is taught to struggling kids with great success - The Arrowsmith Program. Smart daughter you have there, clocks are an excellent brain exercise.
I probably should have done this. My daughter continues to insist that she "can't" read time off analog clocks and only checks her phone (though I'm 99% sure it's actually just because she's lazy and doesn't want to think enough to figure out which hours the hands are sitting between).
My daughter who is 32 yo, always very intellectual and graduated college with a 4.0 average was never able to master the analog clock. She’s somewhat embarrassed about it. It seems like maybe we missed a developmental window and waited too long to teach her 🤷♀️
I was subjected to my Medicare "annual wellness" exam last week. (Mostly questions to test you for cognitive decline so they can call Adult Protective Services and have you evicted from your home.) One test I had to draw an analog clock face and then the hands showing 10 minutes past 10. I wonder how long until everybody fails that test because they were never taught to read an analog clock?
I asked about it once, but they said you can't discuss your 'issues' at that time, it's not that kind of appt. I'd have to make a separate appt to discuss my thyroid. Never mind. Now I'm glad I never gave medicare that much info.
Not sure most docs know the answer anyway!
LOL! I know it's pathetic. Or using a manual can opener.
I have one in my foyer.
I have one in my office--it's a replica of a piece of adobe stone from the Hopis and there's a Kokopelli at the "half past" position. I enjoy telling the time looking at my "Koko" Klock!!
We kept an old beige colored rotary dial phone in the tack room at the barn, attached to a bell-ringer on the outside wall, so we could hear it even to the far corners of the pastures.
I used to give riding lessons. One little girl, upon seeing the phone sitting on the table, asked, "What is that?"
Me: "What is what?"
Little girl: "That. One the table."
Me: "The phone?"
Little girl: "That's not a phone - it doesn't have any buttons!"
I had her lift the receiver so she could hear the dial tone (today she wouldn't even know what a dial tone is!!!) and showed her how to dial her phone number. The 9s and 0s were a bit tricky! 😂🤣😂🤣
Still have the phone and bell-ringers - just need a new barn in which to hook them up! Sigh.
Mrs. "the Knife"
We still have a landline in Idaho, but the government has identified up to 50 homes in our VERY RURAL area that are disadvantaged because of our poor internet speeds and therefore giving our local phone company a super deal on a loan to bring fiber optic cable into our homes, invading us and making our DSL obsolete. We can still have a "landline" but it will be controlled over a modem, which will be tied to the fiberoptic. If the power has gone out in the past, the phone always worked. Wouldn't happen now, because the modem is powered by electricity. And we will have NO CHOICE. Not to mention that it is an extra 20 bucks to have a landline. I am like "Eff them, I am NOT paying for their shit that is invading my house." They are on the splicing end of it and it hasn't happened full scale yet, but it is getting close. Soon, there will be no place to hide. And...might I add, the homes that are targeted and inhabitants within are very law abiding with eyes wide open.
I'm a legacy DSL customer because nothing else is available in the foothills where I live. For 34 years I had a landline, and then about 15 years ago when ATT offered DSL service up here, it ran through the same land line. Recently I decided to cut costs (they were charging $69 for the land land and $59 for the very lousy DSL which they still have but don't maintain very well. If I'm lucky I get 3 Mpbs, sometimes 5. They told me they just "couldn't" separate the two services. So I filed an FCC report (in which I said ATT was forcing me to buy a phone service I don't use) about it, and lo and behold, less than 2 weeks later they must have leaned on ATT to meet my request to have a DSL only line at a cheaper rate. ATT got on it and kept contacting me from their top offices, so for unknown reasons FCC must have really been on their case. I even got FCC replies telling me to notify them if things weren't resolved! It took about 2 weeks for ATT to sort it out, but I just got a new bill and instead of being $ 59 if was for $10, which is more or less what their slow service is worth.
The bad thing is that since I have a "legacy" DSL line (they will no longer install DSL for new customers up here) I've been told they can cancel it at anytime, and worse yet, there are no plans for installing fiber optic lines up here and nothing else is available either unless I install a hot spot type service all on my own...buying the modem and getting a signal from a cell tower.
All I can say is that I am gobsmacked at the near immediate action I got from the FCC. Why they were so efficient I'll never know.
Yep...lousy DSL, and 5 MBPS is faaast for where we are too. My bill is $70 for landline and internet. It will more than double for fiber optic internet and a 'landline'. That is total BS that I didn't ask for. I might just go with Starlink, just to see if they will lower my bill. We have a teeny phone company that makes their money off the government tit for installing phones where no phones have gone before, like a little town in the mountains of Idaho called Yellowpine. We live in FL part time and the noise is just awful ALL the time. Sirens, aircraft and the noise of streetlights and pollution it causes as well. There is just no getting away from the 'always on' feeling. Now you can't even go sit in your car to get away if it is a newer model because there is always something electrical buzzing it up inside us. My fridge drives me absolutely crazy with the constant hum. Now I sound totally crackerdog...haha.
I'm in the sticks too but my small ISP has a fiber running this way so they offered it to everyone in the area. I'm lucky to get 20mb where I live but I fell within range of the DSLAM. I can't go any higher. I also have to have the telephone service but it's for emergencies because the cell service is awful out here. I've actually used it more for faxing. I'm not sure if they offer Naked DSL aka dry loop DSL connection. It's 145 dollars. A friend of ours lives a litter further can only get dial up. 56k but she uses it and says it's painful to wait for pages to load. LOL They do offer Starlink where I'm at and it would be $120 month and $599 for hardware. The download speed is 25-50mb upload is 5mb
Doesn't seem that it always boils down to no choice.
Good Luck SadieJay. I'm fighting the "modern" system here as well.
I wanted to keep my landline because it was the easiest way to find my cell phone, but the taxes on it were higher than the phone bill itself. It just made me too mad to tolerate.
Right??!!!! I am like "how the hell and I going to find my cell phone when I refuse to have a modem-powered landline?!"
Ha, another problem with living alone. You can use your computer to find your phone, dial your number from a website. I used it once, then realized that it wasn't smart to give my number to some unknown site. But nothing odd happened, no spam or anything. Now I just make myself look harder for it, reminds me not to just put it down anywhere.
I have one too! Problem is its tied to the internet bc they stopped all
land line service from reg phone lines.
There hasn't been TRUE land lines in our part of PA since about 2014! I had a digital land line but got rid of it when my business tanked earlier this year. I am now almost totally dependent on my S/S retirement income since losing the income from my sole proprietorship that I kept running successfully for over 23 years. I believe the Lord is telling me it's soon my time to "go home"--I'm ready!! This world is NOT my home...I'm just a'travelin' through. If heaven's not my home--then LORD--WHAT WILL I DO??? The angels beckon me through heaven's open door--and I can't feel at home in this world ANYMORE!!
Remember that old gospel tune--borrowed from the Ebenezer Baptist church congregants of yesteryear!!
You're not ready yet, you're too full of helpful advice! 😊
I've been told before that "I'm full of it", Karen--LOL!!
Me too! 🤣
"Birds of a feather"--right?
I'm thinking Western Tanager for my bird...
Oh my - what a gorgeously plumed bird is that Western tanager - I've never seen one before. Do you see them where you live, Karen?
Yes, very few, we're on the edge of the forest but do have a water feature and they come in to drink. I did a painting of the first one I saw.
I have several online friends who are very talented artists--would you send me your Tanager painting to my sharonabend@yahoo.com e-mail address, Karen?
I'll opt for my all-time favorite - the male Cardinal!
Gorgeous! I've never seen one, we don't have them here out west.
And we don't have your Western Tanager here in PA--we should do a "bird swap"--LOL!!
BTW...I guess you're using a "smart"phone to make your comments, aren't you, Karen? Because I'm on my laptop and there aren't any "emoji" options on C & C group if you're using a 'puter rather than a "device". I'd love to insert some "emojis" once in awhile!
I use both, this afternoon I'm using my laptop and it's letting me use emojis. Wonder why you can't? and just to rub it in 🤷🏼♀️ Try Control, Command and the space bar.
Yes!
Is that a Corgi you're holding in your Substack profile pic, Karen?
She was about 6 months old there I think.
What is her name, Karen?
I always think of Queen Elizabeth II when I see Corgis. I had a neighbor in Palm Springs who bred them--she would have at least 3 of them sauntering around the neighborhood at any given time. Very docile breed!! I fell in love with the Maltese breed about 35 years ago (a client of mine was a private breeder and he shared photos of his "pups" and I fell in instant "Malty dog heaven" love! But I never thought I'd have one because breeders charge upward of $1,500 for puppies. I was doing gig work at Petco and Petsmart for Blue Buffalo and learned about "dog rescue groups" and started searching online for a rescue Maltese. My first adoption was Maisy--a puppy mill breeder who had spent her whole doggie life in a cramped, dirty, wire cage on a miller "farm". What a precious, submissive doggie girl was my Maisy. I was privileged to have her sweetness in my life for 7 1/2 years. She left me in September of 2017. 1 month later, I adopted my second Maltese rescue--a male this time. Colby--who was a "gift" to a woman who didn't want him in the first place--so she never trained him or taught him how to be a true Malty doggie boy. It's been a "work in progress" for the past 6 years. He's finally becoming a REAL dog (he's lying beside me snoring in his doggie bed right now!).
Meshtastic is very useful for short-range, highly secure communication that is independent of an intermediary such as a phone company. Currently it’s mostly only accessible to geeks who can manage some small amount of technical complexity, but it holds a lot of potential, in my view.
For those like me that didn’t know what “Meshtastic” is... https://meshtastic.org/docs/introduction
I just tried understanding Meshtastic - beyond my "ken"--my Dad would probably "get it" as he was a ham radio operator for many years.
Cool. But just pray it doesn’t go back far enough to include party lines!
It would be Homeland Security on the other party line!
LOL. I love the way you think!
It's called getting old.
They are already on the other party line!
Mrs. "the Knife"
We tried to keep one up here in the sticks for power outages but after waiting 3 times for century link to come up and make adjustments for lines they never showed and gave us the most ridiculous excuses. We fired them. $70 a month saved
We still have one too!
Me too! Funny how when cell signal is bad and breaking up people then default to calling our landline. Our phone company last year made a big sell job push for us to get rid of it...nope not doing it. Their sales person clearly was not prepared for counter arguments to each of their "but, but, but..." points.
Well this is weird…. I tried to get rid of my landline and Cox Communication reps stated to get rid of the landline it was in a bundle and would cost 20.00 more a month.
I'm guessing your "landline" is a digital line. As in, it wouldn't work during a power outage.
Wow...that's interesting!
My connection using a landline is always very clear.
I ONLY have a landline.
Hubby and I would like to have a landline, less electromagnetic field. I'm sick of the "tech & science" that contributes to ill health. Keep your landline Kathleen! Now that would make a great T-shirt to wear in front of tpb.
Saw an interview the other day where concerns were raised about the Bluetooth in vehicles.
You can purchase a meter to measure the EMF.
Yes, it seems the BT signals aren't healthy either. And you have people walking around all day with BT earbuds. I have to wear hearing aids and they have BT. It can be paired with your TV which I don't watch. Or pair it to a phone which I barely get a signal for. And I my phone either with wired earbuds or speaker phone. Apparently, the biggest feature is using your phone to adjust the settings which you can do by holding certain buttons on the hearing aids. LOL In other words, it's useless for me. I hold the button down on one for 7 seconds to place them in airplane mode and it turns off the BT signal.
😂 I still have a landline that I use. It's very reliable and I feel it's important for emergencies being in the rural sticks. If I call into out of my area, I can be charged for long distance. 😂 I'm lucky to get a signal where I live. I still have to go outside to walk around and do a few circles to get a signal. I've gone through all the major carriers and Verizon was the best. T-Mobile was the worst. I now can use my cell phone with VoIP to make calls and send texts. The highest speed I can get is 20MBs and that's pushing it since I'm far from the DSLAM. I refuse to use a cell phone next to me. It has to be on speaker phone or use earbuds. Will never go to 5g either. I still remember the rotary dial and party lines. lol
Me too
We changed our home phone to a cell line quite a few years ago, but now I want to go back to a landline. Does anyone know how you do that? Just call ATT? Our cell line always crackles and drops calls.
If you want a landline - Spectrum will provide one for 19.99 a month and although it is tied to the modem and router, if you have another available phone jack in your house, then you can plug a landline phone into it and even in a power outage the phone works. I bought a princess phone on amazon for $19 brand new. Not a rotary phone but push button. Seems the rotary thing is not recognized any longer. But this is the way for anyone to go if you want a landline. I ditched the cell phone 2 years ago and never missed it once. The whole world was doing just fine without cell phones. People forget how it used to be.
Thank you, James. I will look into Spectrum. You are so right about the world doing just fine without cell phones. In fact, more and more I feel that the world was MUCH BETTER without them.
We haveATT and wanted that (in So Cal) and were told we could put a phone in the house but it would work like a cell phone. No more landlines issued for anyone.
Pretty sure that's what I was told in south Florida too. And this was quite awhile ago.
If I had known back when .... 🥴
Not sure...I know that businesses still use landlines...so that might be a starting point to ask them.
Reading thru this thread, I bet Jeff Childers is shocked by how many if his tribe are low tech, or wish to be. Also, so many who live in far-flung areas.