Has anyone used a pager before?

I had a pager, but it was in the late 90's. At that time, you could definitely do what you're asking.

A quick Google search found this. It seems like in the "early 80s" numeric pagers existed. Apparently most could display up to 10 digits. In my area, it wasn't until the 90's that you had to dial the area code for a local call so, under those circumstances, it might work.

Deleted post by accident. NateCrow is correct (I had one late 80s). When it went off we called Dispatch and they gave us the message. Then we'd call the person who paged us or head for court or whatever else we were supposed to do. Not high tech at all.

I carried a pager in the 80s for a job in residential social services. Clients called in to a service, left a message, service would then page me and I called in for the message.

How other people describe it is how I remember it. Keep in mind, though, that 911 services weren't available nationwide for a long time. In central Iowa, we didn't get it until the mid 80s.

The only other thing is that automated responses might (read: might, I'm not sure) have required a touch-tone phone. Again, until the mid 80s in Iowa the system we had could handle rotary phones (which we had until the AT&T breakup) and when we used a push button phone, instead of the familiar "beep" we would hear a series of clicks corresponding to the number we pushed. The old Pizza Hut "Pizza Hut Pizza to Go" ads confused me because that's not what we heard when we dialed. In fact, our phone had a switch to go between touch tone and pulse, depending on our phone system.

My first pager(s) were Motorola "beepers" and this was in the very early 80s. They were one-way and short range and it worked like ap123's beeper: if the pager beeped or vibrated, you called in for the message or called the number displayed. The beeper message was usually numeric (phone number) with a "beeper code" tacked on and, if memory serves (but don't count on it), the 911 simply meant emergency—not in the sense of calling emergency services as we know it today. The code I remember getting most often was the one for "Where are you?"

At first, I wasn't planning on responding, because I only remembered my relatives using pagers in the 90s, not 80s, and I didn't think my information would be much help, (especially after I read Wikipedia's page about all the different types of pagers that existed and still are in use, today), but since others responded how their pagers worked, which was exactly how I remember my relatives' pagers working, I thought it might be useful confirmation.

I only remember that my relatives' pagers would beep and their co-workers' number would appear, to let them know they had to call back, immediately, from a landline phone. They recognized most, if not, all of the numbers of their co-workers, so they knew who was calling them, even if their pagers didn't have their co-workers' names attached to the number.

I'm unsure what your 911 message added to the end would mean, whether your cop is just trying to tell the FBI agent that he wants her to call him back, immediately, because it's an emergency or whether he wants her to call 911, in addition to calling him back? If it's only the former, as a way for her to know it's an emergency, I'm not sure whether that's needed, because my relatives always knew that, when their beepers went off, obviously, their co-workers were calling them because they needed them for an emergency at work; I don't remember them adding 911 to their calls, but of course, for their jobs, they weren't cops or hospital workers, so they didn't ever need for anyone to call 911, only for communication between them and their bosses/co-workers. So, perhaps, people who worked in those fields back then, had a different protocol.

I used a pager extensively in the late 80's/early 90s. Typically you used your pager to, obviously, get someone to call you. Using a touch tone phone, you could input all numbers plus the number sign (you younger folks call it a hashtag now). What we would do is input the call back number then #911 for "Emergency, call me right now!!" or #1, #2, or #3 for importance level, from "call me when you get a minute" to "need to hear from you pretty quick" Most people and organizations had these kind of numeric shorthand codes, including drug dealers. Only some paging systems were capable of using rotary phone input. Touch tone was pretty common by the late 80s, but by no means universal.

Our pagers were controlled through Dispatch only. If the LT wanted me or wanted to pass a message like "call home" he'd call Dispatch and have them page me. There were no options to add numbers. If I needed to convey I had an emergency, I did it over the primary radio channel or switched to a secondary channel that could be monitored by other personnel, but not outsiders. Or I stopped and called from a pay phone. We had a bypass so it cost us nothing. Ours were Motorolas, as was our whole system.

You're welcome. You might want to google the old beeper codes; I'm pretty sure they were standard. Don't know if they're online anywhere, but it's worth the search for purposes of authenticity.

Ari Meermans said:

You're welcome. You might want to google the old beeper codes; I'm pretty sure they were standard. Don't know if they're online anywhere, but it's worth the search for purposes of authenticity.

Click to expand...

http://www.hal0gen.com/archive/anarkia/411_beeper.html