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Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!lll-lcc!ptsfa!well!rab
From: rab@well.UUCP (Bob Bickford)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.modems
Subject: What number am I calling from?
Message-ID: <2247@well.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 23-Dec-86 06:37:48 EST
Article-I.D.: well.2247
Posted: Tue Dec 23 06:37:48 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 23-Dec-86 21:41:54 EST
References: <750@sdcc12.ucsd.EDU> <1706@sunybcs.UUCP> <722@cooper.UUCP>
Distribution: na
Organization: Whole Earth Lectronic Link, Sausalito, CA
Lines: 36
Summary: phone trivia

In article <722@cooper.UUCP>, chris@cooper.UUCP (Chris Lent ) writes:
>  Here's a bit of phone trivia that works in some places.  Dial
>  958 and many times you get a generated voice telling you the number
>  you are DIALING from.
> 
>  Enjoy
> -- 
> Chris Lent 	ihnp4!allegra!phri!cooper!chris

   Of course, this depends on what particular company's CO equipment
is being used.  For example, in most of Silicon Valley the magic
number is 760 although at least one town (can't remember which)
uses 890

   More trivia: Most CO's have various service numbers that the
linemen can dial (from your instrument) to check your level, etc.
If your exchange is 656, for example, you might find that dialing
656-0020 gets you a pulsing 1004 Hz. tone.  It will have been at
0 db at the CO; any less is the loss in your line.
   There are also numbers that give you a terminated line (good
for balancing bridges) and a sweep tone.  No, it is *not* illegal
for you to dial any of these; they exist so that people who know
what they're doing can make adjustments to (for example) audio
conferencing equipment.  (and, of course, primarily for the telco
service people)   Anyway, try numbers of the form  XXX-00YZ  
where XXX is your exchange, Y is some digit 1-9 (usually low),
and Z selects the particular test function (so usually Z can only be 0-3).

 Enjoy!

-- 
Robert Bickford     {lll-crg,hplabs}!well!rab
terrorist, cryptography, DES, drugs, cipher, secret, decode, NSA, CIA, NRO.
 The above is food for the NSA line eater.  Add it to your .signature and
 you too can help overflow the NSA's ability to scan all traffic going in or
 out of the USA looking for "significant" words.  (This is not a joke, sadly.)