How Evan Doorbell became a Phone Phreak

How Evan Doorbell became a Phone Phreak is an introductory 10-part series of narrated telephone recordings by former phone phreak Evan Doorbell, recounting the early years of his interest in the telephone system. This series of recordings is part of Evan Doorbell's collection of telephone recordings. This series is presented as a narrative by Evan, frequently interspersed with recordings from the time. Songs from the 1970s are also often used as background music.

Part 1

In the late 1960s, Evan is a young teenager growing up on Long Island, not yet interested in the telephone. In 1969 and 1970, societal norms relaxed and became less formal; Evan recalls that dress codes were relaxed, military-style inspections were discontinued at summer camp during the Vietnam War, and even the Bell System's telephone intercept recordings became more conversational. Evan recalls several telephone intercept recordings from 1969 and 1970 that demonstrate this change in style, and tries to get several interesting telephone recordings on the phone. He hears multifrequency (MF) tones on certain calls and becomes fascinated by them, varying the numbers dialed to hear the tones.

In July 1970, Evan finds a "party line" conference in his neighborhood accessible by dialing 3-1-1. He learns that when dialed from his friend's house, a different 3-1-1 conference is reached. His friend also demonstrates the 6-6-0 dial and ring test circuit; Evan is fascinated by the unusual quadruple ring, likening it to the "phone doing a new trick", but is disappointed that 6-6-0 is invalid on his home phone. He dials 6-6-0 from all the phones he encounters, including his parents' friend Harriett's house, who is freaked out by the unusual ring. He eventually finds though that he is able to predict is 6-6-0 will work from a particular phone by checking if there is a burst of dial tone at the end of the first digit.

Evan continues his exploration of MF tones by trying to match the digits he hears to keys on a piano and decipher the meaning of the digits. Evan notes the sequence of digits announced at the end of telephone recordings (e.g. 313-2) and is curious what they mean. He gradually deduces that the recordings are local intercepts from each area code, and Evan dials all 120 area codes, listening to the varying accents and wordings. At the end of July 1970, however, Evan is off to summer camp where he will be without phone access.

Part 2

Evan is at summer camp in the summer of 1970, without telephone access to continue pursuing his newfound interest. Evan recalls that in Long Island, subscribers did not (and could not) dial "1" first for long distance. He sneaks a listen to the camp office's telephone, which has an old city dial tone. Evan recalls that back in 1965, his mother was displeased at the "new dial tone" (precise dial tone) on their phone line; he is confused when he discovers that the old city busy tone remained, despite the precise dial tone.

Evan realizes that he has never tried dialing an area code followed by a "0" or "1" (e.g. NPA-0... or NPA-1...). On his way back from camp to Long Island, Evan stops at a payphone in Oxford, New Jersey, served by an independent phone company. The payphone has an old city dial tone, and when he dials "1", he gets an intercept recording. When dialing (516) 111-1111, the number rings and goes to a special operator that tells him he has dialed incorrectly and to try again. When dialing FRanklin4-9979, he encounters a tone sweep; when dialing the 9979 numbers in various other Long Island prefixes, he gets various sorts of similar test lines. He also encounters the automated "Please repeat the number you are calling to the special operator" when dialing nonworking numbers and failing to verbally provide the number dialed to the operator. He also continues playing with the 6-6-0 party line from payphones, such as from LYnbrook9-9777, using the pseudonym "Bob". Evan is horrified to discover that he is unable to hang up on an incoming call to the payphone; a girl from the party line can hold his line for up to 3 minutes at a time, forcing him to abandon his dime. Evan learns that although he can only hold people up for up to 20 seconds from his home phone, from other lines, he can hold people up from 2+1⁄2 to 5 minutes.

Armed with this information, and the knowledge that pay stations were typically assigned in the 9XXX range, Evan and his friends would call payphone numbers given out on party lines (recalling one incident of this as late as 1974) and hold people up when they tried to make a new call, pretending to be from the "Dime Holders of America".

Part 3: Atlanta in September 1970

Evan and his family fly to Atlanta, where Evan has been visiting since his early youth. Evan is able to play with the phone from his grandma's back port. On the upside, Atlanta has a large free local calling area, in contrast to the complex message unit scheme used in Long Island. He recognizes the voice on the local Time and Temperature number from shortwave radio. However, he is unnerved at the relative lack of richness characterizing the electronic switch he encounters. In contrast to his home phone line, the switch here is much more non-communicative about call progress; for example, there is no click at the end of dialing, and the musical MF tones from Long Island are not audible here. He is likewise disappointed with most of the phone lines he is able to access, such as at Uncle Harry's house. However, from some payphones, he discovers that call setup begins to suburban exchanges as soon as the exchange code has been dialed, and some of the ringback tones he hears are very strange. Finally, at the airport, Evan finds there are payphone lines from 4 different prefixes, which he explains is due to the phone company importing payphone lines from multiple exchanges. From a phone which has a burst of dial tone after the initial deposit, he hears the "friendly Atlanta" intercept recording for the first time.

Part 4

Evan recalls that telephone exchanges rarely ended in 0, and decides to try calling exchanges ending in 0. Dialing "290" rings somebody whom he cannot hang up on. Some codes go to a continuous ring to an intercept recording. Dialing "450" from his friend Larry's house provides an old city dial tone which fails to respond to further digits. The code "890" from Larry's house also provides the same type of dial tone used on 6-6-0. Codes of format N10 go to the local operator, whom Evan notes can hold someone up indefinitely. "970" is a code that goes to a continuous ring to an all circuits busy intercept. He also observes that the differing 3-1-1s are simply due to different recordings being present on them. Evan also further explores the identifiers at the end of different intercept recordings around the country, making up the routing hierarchy of the North American phone network.

One day on the 3-1-1 conference, someone named Herbie has amplified his voice so that it's three times louder. This inspires them to connect an amplifier to the telephone to talk on the 3-1-1 party line. From a payphone, Evan observes this method works very well. Evan and his friend use the amplifier to help people get their phone numbers out, also jamming the line when drawing ire from other participants.

Evan decides to get his own phone line, one like his friend's, rather than one like the phone at home now. He knows that he can tell what type of line a phone is on by the prefix, and decides to get a LYnbrook9 (599) number, since these can access the 3-1-1 party line and 6-6-0. After initially being assigned an 887 number, he cancels the order and requests a 599 number, which will get installed in a week. In the meantime, he plays around with the special operator automatic intercept recordings. The first Automatic Intercept System voiced by Jane Barbe is also debuted in Hempstead, Long Island, running from 9:00 to 5:00 Monday through Friday.

In a mixup, an installer shows up to install the 887 number that Evan had cancelled. However, the installer is able to explain that he can ring back his phone using 660 + his last 4 digits. However, this 6-6-0 works slightly differently from the 6-6-0 with the party line. He then dials 3-1-1 from his parents' LYnbrook3 home phone again to find silence, leading him to discover that this 3-1-1 can now be used as a party line. Evan helps start a new party line conference on this 3-1-1, introducing himself as "Evan from Malverne". With his help, the new party line takes off, ironically just as about Evan is about to get his own phone line from the switch with access to the other party line.