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Phone dead? Try Morse code

Some Verizon customers at Brentwood Estates must tap to reach neighbors. The utility works on the problem.

By COLLEEN JENKINS
Published December 9, 2005

	[Times photos: Brendan Fitterer]
	Frances Andersen, seated, describes her Verizon phone service problems Thursday in Hudson as neighbors, from left, Anne Floyd, Ernest Dean and Tommy Rawlings listen before describing their own experiences with spotty service. They were attending a meeting on the issue at Rawlings' home in Brentwood Estates mobile home park.
	Shirley Beauregard, left, and Judith Perez listen as neighbors discuss their poor phone service. Verizon says it is working on the problem.

HUDSON - How bad is the Verizon phone service at Brentwood Estates mobile home park?

Some residents communicate in Morse code.

This is no joke to Tommy Rawlings. His is one of 119 homes in the tidy senior community off New York Avenue that have suffered from erratic phone service for three years. Even when the phones do work, the quality is so bad, as fellow resident Jemon Grant puts it, "you sound like a duck."

This week, a frustrated Rawlings and his neighbor Lorna McFarland came up with a way around the poor quality: Morse code taps on the phone's mouthpiece. Three taps signals an emergency.

"Isn't it pretty archaic?" said McFarland, 59. But "you do what you have to do."

If that fails, "we've developed this amazing technology," 53-year-old Rawlings said. "We yell at each other across the street."

Your phone has been fixed.

- Prerecorded message received by Betty Harkness on Monday evening.

On Tuesday, Halsey "Hal" Harkness fell.

His wife, 81-year-old Betty, rushed for the phone. She heard a dial tone. She dialed 911. She still heard a dial tone.

Figures, she thought.

So she went door to door until she found a neighbor with a cell phone.

In the end, 82-year-old Hal, who has congestive heart failure and trouble walking, was fine. Rescue workers responded quickly and helped him back into his home.

His wife was furious with Verizon. For eight nights straight she had received calls saying her phone service was repaired. Then the phone malfunctioned again the next day.

"I would like," Betty Harkness whispered sweetly, "to wring all their necks."

By Wednesday, Tommy Rawlings had heard enough.

At 9:28 a.m., he sent an e-mail to the St. Petersburg Times, sarcastically titled, "A Communication Breakthrough." He explained the Morse code solution created by the "resourceful" residents of Brentwood.

There are only two things that bother us though, the e-mail stated. Number one: We are still paying our monthly bills to Verizon for service not there. Number two: We have all noted that the last communications sent out from the sinking Titanic were in Morse code!

A few hours later, Rawlings spoke to a reporter by phone. The connection was full of static.

"First, it was an inconvenience," he said. "Then it got everybody scared, frightened. It's not just about being social. It's about people who might need medical attention."

Twelve minutes and 40 seconds into the conversation, the line went dead. Rawlings called back.

"I didn't hang up on you!" he said. "We go through this here."

Brentwood residents say the problem has intensified during the past month. Some people went up to 10 days with almost no service at all. Others got a spotty connection. Static and no dial tone also plague the community.

A Verizon spokesman said the company has been "deeply aware" of the situation for a few weeks.

"We hear what the customers are saying," spokesman Bill Kula said. "We want them to have the comfort of knowing that every time they pick up the telephone, it will work."

Weather and age have damaged the equipment that connects 384 customers - mostly Brentwood Estates residents - to one of Verizon's larger transmission centers, Kula said. For weeks, workers have tried to fix the system.

"A few days later," Kula said, "the system has become unstable again."

Rawlings told a reporter he would get a couple of neighbors together Thursday to explain their concerns. But word spread fast. Sixteen people showed up at his home. Four women squeezed onto the couch. Rawlings pulled out extra chairs.

"If we had had more notice," one man said, "we could have gotten 100 people."

Eager to be heard, several people spoke at the same time. Jemon Grant, 73, said he tried every day to call his daughter in Pennsylvania, who is ill with cancer, but she often had difficulty understanding him. Judith Perez, 63, said she worried about not getting through to 911 if her heart condition worsened. Lorna McFarland said her son, a master sergeant in the National Guard, couldn't get through from Iraq.

She had heart problems, too, and had been having chest pains.

"I (am) very anxious that I don't have a phone," she said.

Many in the crowd live alone. Only a few have cell phones.

Had they all called Verizon with their concerns? the reporter asked.

"Yes!" they said in unison, nodding their heads emphatically.

"I guess we've spoken to everyone in the office," Grant said.

Anne Floyd, 68, called the Public Service Commission on Monday to log a complaint. They gave her a case number, then put her in touch with a Verizon representative.

"You've got a Bible here," the representative said, according to Floyd, when she looked up her complaint history.

Verizon has 15 days to respond to Floyd's complaint, PSC spokesman Kevin Bloom said.

The residents weren't optimistic.

"They have not been very forthcoming with us about it," Keith Illingworth, 63, said.

"They consider this the boondocks," Leo Maguire said.

Kula, the Verizon spokesman, said Brentwood Estates customers were not being ignored.

"Our aim is to provide the highest quality local phone service to all our customers regardless of where they live," he said.

In the middle of the impromptu meeting, Rawlings' phone rang.

The room went silent.

Rawlings ceremoniously picked up the receiver. Everyone watched him.

"It'll probably work now," someone grumbled.

It did.

Later Thursday, Kula called the Times. Verizon servicemen had zeroed in on the specific hardware that appeared to be the root of Brentwood Estates' jam, he said, and were replacing it that day.

The phones worked, he said.

"But we want to ensure that there is no future disruption," Kula added.

In late afternoon, a reporter called Lorna McFarland to ask another question.

Tommy Rawlings answered.

After the meeting at his house had broken up, he'd had a lunch of tuna fish on wheat and an Old Milwaukee Light. On the way to get some chips, he had checked his caller ID.

McFarland had tried to reach him. But Rawlings' phone had not rung.

He hurried over to her home, not knowing how long ago she had called. She was having chest pains, she said, and couldn't breathe. He drove her to the hospital.

When the reporter called, he was back at her house picking up some of her things. On Thursday evening, McFarland was still in the emergency room at Regional Medical Center Bayonet Point.

Colleen Jenkins can be reached at 727 869-6236 or cjenkins@sptimes.com

[Last modified December 9, 2005, 01:19:17]