# '80's cable tv touch-tone speed dial sound
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/80s-cable-tv-touch-tone-speed-dial-sound/576107
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [March 27, 2011, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/80s-cable-tv-touch-tone-speed-dial-sound/576107 "2011-03-27T01:24:10Z")
**Posts on this page:** 9
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Darth\_Nader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Nader)
#### Post date: [March 27, 2011, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/80s-cable-tv-touch-tone-speed-dial-sound/576107/1 "2011-03-27T01:24:10Z")
Pretty much up there in the title. HBO and Showtime used it a lot between things. I’m watching RTV right now, and they use a similar sound during breaks. What was it?
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### Author:  [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)
#### Post date: [March 27, 2011, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/80s-cable-tv-touch-tone-speed-dial-sound/576107/2 "2011-03-27T01:28:30Z")
I think it might be in-band signaling.
Search “non television” on the link below. It’s used to signal when to start the show.
[In-band signaling](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-band_signaling)
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### Author:  [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)
#### Post date: [March 27, 2011, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/80s-cable-tv-touch-tone-speed-dial-sound/576107/3 "2011-03-27T01:31:27Z")
[http://www.dialabc.com/sound/](http://www.dialabc.com/sound/)
See also [DTMF tones](http://www.dialabc.com/sound/dtmf.html)
[DTMF Wiki](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual-tone_multi-frequency_signaling)
> [@](#):
>
> As a method of in-band signaling, DTMF tones were also used by cable television broadcasters to indicate the start and stop times of local commercial insertion points during station breaks for the benefit of cable companies. Until better out-of-band signaling equipment was developed in the 1990s, fast, unacknowledged, and loud DTMF tone sequences could be heard during the commercial breaks of cable channels in the United States and elsewhere.
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### Author:  [@Darth\_Nader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Nader)
#### Post date: [March 27, 2011, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/80s-cable-tv-touch-tone-speed-dial-sound/576107/4 "2011-03-27T01:35:08Z")
Wow. That’s it.
I hope RTV is just using 'em for nostalgia value.
Oops, looks like Baltar is going to meet the council!
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### Author:  [@gotpasswords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gotpasswords)
#### Post date: [March 27, 2011, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/80s-cable-tv-touch-tone-speed-dial-sound/576107/5 "2011-03-27T17:30:14Z")
[Bee-doops.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=381895)
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### Author:  [@fiddlesticks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fiddlesticks)
#### Post date: [March 27, 2011, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/80s-cable-tv-touch-tone-speed-dial-sound/576107/6 "2011-03-27T19:14:24Z")
Nickelodeon used them a lot in the You Can’t Do That on Television era.
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### Author:  [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2011, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/80s-cable-tv-touch-tone-speed-dial-sound/576107/7 "2011-03-28T05:15:54Z")
I enocountered them on a lot of Disney home videos, myself.
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### Author:  [@Marc\_Xenos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marc_Xenos)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2011, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/80s-cable-tv-touch-tone-speed-dial-sound/576107/8 "2011-04-02T22:16:59Z")
In the late 70’s, early 80’s, broadcasters were changing to automated system to switch between muliple tape cartridge machines. The tone sequences were manually inserted onto the audio track to trigger certain actions. For instance, insert a tape, hit Play, and it would cue to the beginning of the movie/commercial and stop, to be triggered later by another signal from a different tape.
There is no nostalgia about it. Just that they’ve been left on the audio tracks and nobody has bothered to edit thousands of tapes to get rid of a fairly innocuous momentary audio burp.
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### Author:  [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2011, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/80s-cable-tv-touch-tone-speed-dial-sound/576107/9 "2011-04-10T00:16:15Z")
Pretty sure it is nostalgia on RTV’s part, seeing as they weren’t around in the 70’s-80’s and thus have no old tapes of their station identification to reuse. These sounds aren’t during the shows or vintage ads or anything just their own branding. “RTV _BLEEPBLEEP BLOOP BLEEPBLORP_”