Busy Signal

The hypnotic rhythm of a busy signal, the soft stable sound of a lost connection, the quickly disappearing expression of a bygone era and an antiquated technology. Maybe they are on the other line, maybe a storm knocked out their phone lines, maybe they have gone totally mobile...who knows. Early telephones were locally powered, using either a dynamic transmitter or by the powering of a transmitter with a local battery. One of the jobs of outside plant personnel was to visit each telephone periodically to inspect the battery. Signalling began in an appropriately primitive manner. The user alerted the other end, or the exchange operator, by whistling into the transmitter. Exchange operation soon resulted in telephones being equipped with a bell. This sound uses the following sound file from Freesound: http://www.freesound.org/samplesViewSingle.php?id=90189