Good Call

If you've worked with, or known, the kind of guys who can tinker with electronics and turn what you thought was junk into a functioning radio or VCR or whatever, then you've known guys like Patrick Schlott, from out of Tunbridge, Vt. He is an electrician in his work career, and now, living in rural Vermont, he saw a way to turn his hobby into something good for everyone around. 

Electronics wizards like Patrick do things like doodling around with old pay phones, and he realized that penchant could provide a valuable public service out in the country. 

“I realized, wow, there’s no cell service for 10 miles in either direction,” he said. “The community could really benefit from something like this.”

Think about it...you never see pay phones around anymore, and that can be a problem when you're in a jam five miles from Smallville and you need to reach someone. So Schlott asked the owners of the general store out his way if he could put a refurbished coin phone outside the store. He's also installed them at the local public library, and at the information booth down by interstate 89.

There's no cost to the hosts, or to the user. Schott rounds up the old payphones and rigs them up to work via the wonderful internet. "Basically, there’s a small piece of equipment that converts an internet telephone line to an analog line that these phones can operate off of,” he said.

“Everyone’s pretty surprised, and they’re like, ‘Is that a real payphone? Does that really work?’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah, but it doesn’t cost any money now,’" said the general store owner, Mike Gross. "We’ve had people use it that broke down. It’s a great thing because service is so spotty in Vermont.”

So, instead of being out of touch, people out of cell phone range and unable to call Uncle Nutsy for a lift can make that call - for free - just because a guy took the time to do what so few have done, namely, figuring out what to solder to what. Good going!

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