Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: roy@phri.nyu.edu (Roy Smith) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Telecom Peeves Message-ID: <9712@accuvax.nwu.edu> Date: 13 Jul 90 18:34:25 GMT Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu Organization: Public Health Research Institute, New York City Lines: 40 Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 482, Message 10 of 11 In <9649@accuvax.nwu.edu> Bill Berbenich writes: > I was just reminded of one of my pet telecom peeves. Ever get on the > phone with someone and have them just barely whisper instead of > speakly clearly and plainly? Yeah, drives me nuts. Speakerphone freaks do the same thing. I once had dealings with a lawyer who loved his speaker phone. Only problem, it sounded at this end like he was sitting in the bottom of a well with a sack on his head. At the rates he was charging, I damn well didn't want to waste his time asking him to repeat himself. I eventually got into the habit of automatically saying "Hi Bob, turn off the speaker phone", when he called. Related question: anybody know how to deal with phones in a noisy environment like a machine room. Apparantly people can hear me speaking just fine when I'm in there, but I have a hell of a time hearing them over the roar of the fans. Repeated requests to "please talk louder, I can't hear you over the fans" get the same results as Bill reports. The problem is room noise picked up in the mouthpiece and heard through my earpiece (is sidetone the right term for that?) If I cup my hand over the mouthpiece, I can hear fine, but that's a real drag. I think what I want is a push-to-talk handset, but havn't been able to fine any. Any suggestions? Also, I'm deaf in one ear. It always seemed to me that in situations like talking on the phone in a noisy place, that was actually an advantage instead of a handicap since I don't have to filter out ambient noise from the other ear. Do double-hearing people find that noise in the non-phone ear is a real problem, or does the brain automatically just filter it out? I watch people at phone booths in the subway. Sometimes I see them covering the other ear with one hand, but sometimes they don't seem to bother. Roy Smith, Public Health Research Institute 455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016 roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu -OR- {att,cmcl2,rutgers,hombre}!phri!roy