> Curious what the purpose of calling a pay phone is? (wasn't possible in my country)
Mostly for the humor value for an on-air radio show. I’m sure were pre-arranged just to make sure they got something usable, but I can see the occasion where a random person walking by and hearing the pay phone RINGING would cause them to pause. As a teenager I would have picked it up in a heartbeat (even not having heard the radio shows).
As for other “purposes” I’ve seen some crime/drama shows where the bad guy tells someone to go to the corner pay phone and answer it when it rings at a specific time. Horrible idea now as the phone systems would easily record the number that called it, but up until the early 2000’s it would be one option. Today I would guess dropping a burner phone in an envelope for the “victim” would be a more likely movie trope…
(Source: I’m from the US and remember a few radio stations doing this in the 1980’s and 1990’s.)
> Horrible idea now as the phone systems would easily record the number that called it
I think the idea was that you'd be calling from another pay phone, probably a different one each time so the number didn't matter.
You could do the same with pagers. Your drug dealer would own a pager, you'd call the pager from a random pay phone and send that pay phone's number as a message. The dealer would then use a different pay phone to call you back.
Unlike cellphones, pagers were often one-way, receive-only devices, so you couldn't use them to track somebody's location.
Mostly for the humor value for an on-air radio show. I’m sure were pre-arranged just to make sure they got something usable, but I can see the occasion where a random person walking by and hearing the pay phone RINGING would cause them to pause. As a teenager I would have picked it up in a heartbeat (even not having heard the radio shows).
As for other “purposes” I’ve seen some crime/drama shows where the bad guy tells someone to go to the corner pay phone and answer it when it rings at a specific time. Horrible idea now as the phone systems would easily record the number that called it, but up until the early 2000’s it would be one option. Today I would guess dropping a burner phone in an envelope for the “victim” would be a more likely movie trope…
(Source: I’m from the US and remember a few radio stations doing this in the 1980’s and 1990’s.)