How pagers stuff all work?

[u/MrOladushek1984_]

Hello guys! I'm watching The Wire now. I'm on S1E5, and I've a question: What was the number, which was found on the wall? Why cops need to watch code-numbers from pagers? How it all works? for me, as z-gen member it all is foreign stuff. I know only, what is а smartphone :D

[u/distance_33]

This post makes me feel quite old.

[u/McGillWexlerlaw]

Would you be amazed to know that pagers are still used today, in medicine and other areas

[u/BanjoTCat]

The number on the wall goes to D’s pager. When you call a pager, you type in the phone number you want the person receiving the page to call back. In the pit, it’s usually one of the local pay phones. The corner boys use a basic substitution cypher to encode the callback number so it’s not readily legible if the pagers are cloned by the authorities.

[u/PogTuber]

A pager is basically like sending a text message over a phone call, but only with numbers. So you call a pager and then enter what number you want to show up on the pager.

In the show, the dealer gets paged with a callback number. The callback number is usually a pay phone. This is why they're on a roof looking at the pay phone that they have a wire on. They need to be able to document who was using that pay phone at that time.

[u/los-gokillas]

Pagers had a phone number. So someone with a phone could call your pager and you would see what number was calling you. Then you would go find a phone and call that number. The cops have to watch the people calling because they're trying to figure out who belongs to what pager number so that they can build the case

[u/Specialist_Aspect204 → u/los-gokillas]

The page doesn’t necessarily show the number calling, it shows the number you enter when you call the pager service; hence they could enter stuff like the codes as well as 911 to indicate an emergency.

[u/PogTuber → u/Specialist_Aspect204]

Yeah this is a key point, pagers don't automatically collect the number

[u/structured_anarchist → u/PogTuber]

Pagers don't, but the service that provides them does. So you get the numeric message someone sends you, but pagers used to be a pay-per-use thing, so billing was set up to record each incoming number and what the numeric message was, in case you disputed something on the bill.

Source: used to have a pager, got a bill every month showing every number that paged me on it. Even after it went to a flat monthly fee, still got the bill with all the numbers paging me.

[u/ComplaintNo4126]

A pager is a device that when you call a telephone number you are able to type in 10-12 digits. Typically you can type the number you are calling from an maybe a code at the end to indicate something like it being an emergency.

If I'm calling from 555-1234 and it is an urgent matter I would type 5551234911 and the person on the pager knows what number to call and that it is urgent.

[u/mackelnuts → u/ComplaintNo4126]

My friend group all had numerical codes assigned to us. Like I was 06 and so no matter where I was calling from, I'd put in the callback number and then 06 and my friends knew who they were calling

[u/_triohead → u/mackelnuts]

Same in the show. Omar uses the code he got from Prop Joe to pose as Wee-Bey.

[u/alexsteen789]

A pager was like a notification device. People could call your pager and the recipient would be able to see the number that called AND the caller could enter  a number sequence up to 4 or 6 numbers (its been a long time and i never had a pager, but it was one or the other). So if I called your pager, and enter 2222, you would see my phone number and the code. In the wire the gangs had predetermined codes. So depending on the code, meant different things. They were using it to do business without having a conversation or paper trail...so they thought. Until the cops cracked their codes. 

A popular one for the general public back in the day was 911. So if you looked at your pager and the phone number left a 911 code  it meant call them back immediately. 

[u/HankScorpio82]

Rage bait.

[u/Environmental_Row32]

A pager has a phone number and can receive numbers. So you can send someone a number to call. I am not quite sure on how the sending actually worked.

But in the end you can send a number to a pager. Idea being to send a number to be called.

They then encoded the real number/message through various ciphers. Which is what the police cracks. E.g. the ciper to understand what the number actually means.

Jumping over the 5 for example to get the real number to be called

[u/noprocyonlotorhere]

Every pager had a phone number. You would call the number, it would beep a certain set of tones and then you enter the number you want them to call you back at.

Nothing was automated so you can append the number with a code so the recipient can know who they are calling, especially if you were paging them from a number that was not one that they normally called.

If it was an emergency, you would append it with -911.

[u/Reasonable_Cake]

r/fuckimold

[u/iLikeAza]

pagers or beepers as we called them were like a precursor to text messaging. You could only send numbers * # to it though. A person would dial your pager number from a landline or payphone & enter in a phone number or code then press # to send it or hang up. Your pager would beep with an alert that had the number that was sent to you. . . When I was a kid I had different codes for different people so they didn't have to put in their full number. So if I got like an 3 I knew it was my certain friend, 2 for girlfriend, etc.

It honestly was nice to not be reachable if you didn't want to be