Signal Code

The code by which stations are designated on non-selective party lines usually consists in combinations of long and short rings similar to the dots and dashes in the Morse code. Thus, one short ring may indicate Station No. 1; two short rings Station No. 2; and so on up to, say, five short rings, indicating Station No. 5. It is not good practice to employ more than five succe ive short rings because of the confusion which often arises in people's minds as to the number of rings that they hear. When, therefore, the number of stations to be rung by code exceeds five, it is better to employ combinations of long and short rings, and a good way is to adopt a partial decimal system, omitting the numbers higher than five in each ten, and employing long rings to indicate the tens digits and short rings to indicate the units digit, Table X. TABLE X Signal Code | Station Number | Ring | Station Number | Ring | | 1 | 1 short | 12 | 1 long, 2 short | | 2 | 2 short | 13 | 1 long, 3 short | | 3 | 3 short | 14 | 1 long, 4 short | | 4 | 4 short | 15 | 1 long, 5 short | | 5 | 5 short | 21 | 2 long, 1 short | | 11 | 1 long, 1 short | 22 | 2 long, 2 short | Other arrangements are often employed and by almost any of them a great variety of readily distinguishable signals may be secured. The patrons of such lines learn to distinguish, with comparatively few errors, between the calls intended for them and those intended for others, but frequently they do not observe the distinction, as has already been pointed out.