Time'n'Tempo

From: Joey Lindstrom <joey_at_telussucks.info>
Date: Tue, 03 Jun 2003 08:17:33 -0600

On Tue, 3 Jun 2003 00:47:34 EDT, editor_at_telecom-digest.org wrote:

> [Lisa Minter note: Sure, CJR (the Canadian station) is still around.
> And it is still at 7 megahertz (and wherever else). I do not know
> what they do on the telephone, probably something. Maybe Joey Lindstrom
> or another Canadian reader could tell us. And thanks for your good
> thoughts. Lisa M]

Here in Calgary, AGT (Alberta Government Telephones, predecessor of Telus) operated "Time & Temperature" on 403-262-0002 for many, many years. Then one day they decided to put in a new system, one that allowed them to run an ad prior to the time and temperature announcement (but curiously only ever ran ads for AGT/Telus) -- and for some reason decided that this required a new phone number, 403-233-2222.

That went on for several years, and then one day they changed the phone number again - don't know why, since (to the listener anyways) it appeared to be exactly the same system, with one slight change - after the time and temperature announcement, there was also a one-day weather forecast (the whole thing was completely automated). The new phone number was 403-263-3333.

And then a few years ago Telus decided to abandon the whole thing. No press release, no nothing -- you phoned it up and you got a recording saying it had been discontinued. Today, calling the latter number gives you an out of service recording, while the other two have (I believe) been reassigned to other subscribers (so please don't call them).

To the best of my knowledge, none of the CLEC's operating in Calgary (Sprint Canada, AT&T Canada, Bell West) are operating a similar service. A quick check of the white pages yields nothing under "TIME". One odd note: when they first set up 403-233-2222 with the completely automated readout of time AND TEMPERATURE (this was new -- the old 403-262-0002 did not give temperature readings, just the clock), they preprogrammed it with all the various possibilities. For whatever reason, separate recordings were used for temperature values either below or above zero (Celsius). For example, if it was +1C outside, the playback would be something like this:

"temperature" "one"

(each of those two words was a separate recording, played one after the other)

But if it was -1C, it would do this:

"temperature" "minus one"

 ...rather than what might have been more logical:

"temperature" "minus" "one"

(three recordings, with the "one" recording being exactly the same as in the first example, and a new "minus" recording which could have been played in front of the temperature value in all situations where the temperature was below zero.)

The reason I bring this up is that while the system worked great in the summertime, and would yield results like "temperature" "thirty-five", whoever programmed it didn't account for Calgary's sometimes-brutal winters. For the first few years at least (they eventually fixed it), the system would not produce a reading lower than -29C. Even if it was -35C outside, you'd get:

"the time is" "four" "thirty-seven" (pause) "temperature" "minus twenty nine"

Had they doubled-up the use of the above-zero recordings (and inserted a "minus" recording), this wouldn't have been a problem. :-)

• Joey Lindstrom

Received on Tue Jun 03 2003 - 07:17:33 PDT