# What's up with these answering machines?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-these-answering-machines/174036
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [May 9, 2003, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-these-answering-machines/174036 "2003-05-09T03:04:03Z")
**Posts on this page:** 13
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@liirogue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/liirogue)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2003, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-these-answering-machines/174036/1 "2003-05-09T03:04:03Z")
My new job is calling customers of this mortgage company and trying to get them to refinance. I’ve noticed that a lot of the answering machines have these series of short beeps that go on for as long as 15 or 20 seconds, before you have the long beep that says you can start leaving your message.
What is the purpose of these beeps? Is it to discourage message-leaving, is it triggered by something (like a private name)?
I’ve asked a couple of people and they have no idea what the use of it is, so I have turned to the fountain of knowledge of the Teeming Millions. Alright Teemers, get to work 😃
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### Author:  [@PlanMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PlanMan)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2003, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-these-answering-machines/174036/2 "2003-05-09T03:06:57Z")
Could it be one of those call-blocker devices? Tele-Zapper? Where it is supposed to fool a computer dialer into thinking it is a disconnected line?
Do you (human) dial the phone, or does a computer and you only get on-the-line after the connection is made?
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### Author:  [@Alereon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alereon)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2003, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-these-answering-machines/174036/3 "2003-05-09T03:08:11Z")
Perhaps to trigger fax machines to handshake, so that their calls can be properly handled? Or perhaps its those “TeleZapper” telemarketer protection devices?
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### Author:  [@caymus28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/caymus28)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2003, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-these-answering-machines/174036/4 "2003-05-09T03:15:40Z")
I believe they (the machines) might be the older variety with (gasp!) a tape in them. The pause in which you hear beeps is the tape when the tape is fast forwarding past all of the messages that have already been recorded. All incoming and outgoing messages are all on the same tape; that is why is must fast forward and rewind so often.
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### Author:  [@liirogue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/liirogue)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2003, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-these-answering-machines/174036/5 "2003-05-09T03:26:52Z")
I dial by hand, so I’m always on the line, not just picking up when a connection is made.
I would accept the “they’re just old” theory but there are just so damn _many_ of them that I find it hard to believe they’d still all be around!
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### Author:  [@Chief\_Crunch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Crunch)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2003, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-these-answering-machines/174036/6 "2003-05-09T04:11:49Z")
Caymus is completely correct. I have one these I don’t use anymore, an AT&T model bought for thrity bucks sometime in the mid nineties. Why are still around? Why run out an buy a new answering machine for the sake of owning state of the art answering machine technology? If it gets the job done, why replace it? Plus, I’m sure a lot of people aren’t aware there’s such a long series of beeps.
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### Author:  [@liirogue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/liirogue)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2003, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-these-answering-machines/174036/7 "2003-05-09T12:45:36Z")
Wow, and here I thought it had something to do with trying to screw with my phone 😉
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### Author:  [@Kickback\_Joe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kickback_Joe)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2003, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-these-answering-machines/174036/8 "2003-05-09T12:58:43Z")
My old answering machine did this. Like Caymus said it is an older machine with a tape. For every beep you heard there was a message waiting to be heard. An Ex-friend of mine said he always knew when I was out of town because of this. After I found out how much of a friend he was I spent my remaining cash on a new one.
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### Author:  [@glilly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glilly)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2003, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-these-answering-machines/174036/9 "2003-05-09T14:12:59Z")
These old ones don’t get replaced because they are more inconvienient for the person calling than the person getting the messages.
Before the digital ones took off, you could find expensive machines that had two tapes, one for the outgoing message and one for the caller’s messages. The recording tape wouldn’t have to rewind after each call to get back to the outgoing message.
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### Author:  [@UrbanChic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UrbanChic)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2003, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-these-answering-machines/174036/10 "2003-05-09T14:23:34Z")
I’m glad you posted that, glilly, because I distinctly remember my mom’s answering machine having two tapes. One for the outgoing message and another for the incoming messages.
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### Author:  [@NYR407](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NYR407)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2003, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-these-answering-machines/174036/11 "2003-05-09T14:34:37Z")
Similar to what **Kickback\_Joe** said, I would always tell my friends as part of my message if there was a long wait to leave a message. That way they know it was time to erase some of those older messages. And hopefully get the hint that is was an inconvenience and annoyance to friends leaving messages.
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### Author:  [@slugo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slugo)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2003, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-these-answering-machines/174036/12 "2003-05-09T15:09:28Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Chief Crunch \*
> \*\*Caymus is completely correct. I have one these I don’t use anymore, an AT&T model bought for thrity bucks sometime in the mid nineties. Why are still around? Why run out an buy a new answering machine for the sake of owning state of the art answering machine technology? If it gets the job done, why replace it? Plus, I’m sure a lot of people aren’t aware there’s such a long series of beeps. \*\*
i believe i have the very model you had, only it cost me $15 in the late nineties. i still use. you’re right, it gets the job done. if its important, they’ll wait for the real beep.
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by kickback joe \*
> \*\*My old answering machine did this. Like Caymus said it is an older machine with a tape. For every beep you heard there was a message waiting to be heard. An Ex-friend of mine said he always knew when I was out of town because of this. \*\*
my beeps dont corresspond to the # of messages, but the length of the messages. but we probably had different machines 🙂
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### Author:  [@Uncommon\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uncommon_Sense)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2003, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-these-answering-machines/174036/13 "2003-05-09T16:38:43Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Kickback\_Joe \*
> \*\*My old answering machine did this. Like Caymus said it is an older machine with a tape. For every beep you heard there was a message waiting to be heard. An Ex-friend of mine said he always knew when I was out of town because of this. After I found out how much of a friend he was I spent my remaining cash on a new one. \*\*
Exactly. One beep per message on the tape.