Talk:Automatic Electric

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I am wondering if some first-hand sources or evidence can be cited for this statement: "In the days before touch tone dialing, the company's rotary dial phones had a distinctive buzzing sound as the dial returned to the stop position. Consumers who were used to the more common (and quieter) Western Electric phones found in the major cities were often annoyed by the noise it made." I happen to own an Automatic Electric rotary dial telephone, and I can cite from personal experience that although it does buzz upon return to the stop position, I don't think it is any noisier than the dial of a Western Electric. The Automatic Electric dial is also totally silent when turning the dial clockwise to a digit, unlike the Western Electric dials.

In the article it mentions that Automatic Electric ringer gongs are a minor fifth apart, and I seem to remember reading that they are specifically tuned to the notes "A" and "E", apparently in reference to the Automatic Electric branding. ("A" and "E" being five notes apart from each other.) Can anybody confirm this or is it merely apocryphal? Might be worth mentioning in the article if it's actually the case.

I lived in a GTE area in the 1970s and still use my old AE phone daily, but I'm profoundly tone-deaf myself.

04:13, 2 January 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.5.149.135 (talk)

The Automatique Electrique name was abandoned in 1962 and the company become known as Automatic Electric N.V. In 1970 the name ATEA NV was adopted, which conveniently matched the brand name. In 1971 the name was again changed, this time to GTE ATEA to reflect the change in ownership. In 1986 the name reverted to ATEA but was changed to Siemens ATEA in 1995

Source http://www.kulentuur.be/ateamuseum/vrienden_atea_museum/publicaties/atea_intro.pdf Everybody got to be somewhere! (talk) 21:41, 12 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]