"This subject was discussed several times in the past. A review of the archives by setting the search date to all and including all forums/threads should provide several minutes of reading on the subject."
I did a search before posting and might not have gone back far enough. Thanks for your reply.

I carry the number and code for an AT&T card that must be at least 5 years old and I still haven't used up the minutes. I don't even know where the card is anymore. I probably use it once a year. After Katrina, I sent the number to some local hams that were relaying messages from the affected area and they used a hundred minutes or so calling family for people. I'm probably never gonna use that thing up.

Hi Bill,

No problem, happy to help out where I can. The searches can be a bit tricky at first. It is a trade off, search all forums, threads, dates and it takes longer but may provide additional information that more restricted (and consequently quicker) searches may not turn up.

Regards,
Comanche7

Our local Walgreen Drugstore has two-for-one sales on phone cards occasionally, so we used to stock up. Problem is, the _do_ expire after 12 months. Read the back of the card.

Another issue is that some payphones will not let you dial 800 numbers. We've run into that problem at a couple of places.

Hmmm, that definitely would be a problem. Did you ever figure out a way around that, or just looked for another phone? Gosh, it's been so long since I used a pay phone. If you put coins in first, I wonder if it would let you dial an 800 number? I guess it's also possible that whatever company's card you have also has local access numbers that can be dialed. I mean, these companies just buy minutes from the big telecoms and they all have local numbers, but maybe they don't work for these generic calling card companies' calls. Unfortunately, if the closest local access number is a long distance call from you, you're out of luck.

Here's a different twist to the calling card angle. Make sure you also write down the voicemail access number for your cellular service so that other people can leave you messages and you can listen to them from a pay phone. I haven't actually tried this in an emergency situation where the cell phone system could be overloaded, so not sure how reliable it is during an actual emergency. But eventually, even if particular cells are still down, the core system will be able to respond and hopefully people can call your cell number and leave you messages.

After Katrina, so many families and friends were split up and spread to the four corners of the country, and if a landline was their only phone number back in the hurricane area, they had no way to get in touch with each other once they were moved elsewhere.

>Did you ever figure out a way around that, or just looked for another
> phone? Gosh, it's been so long since I used a pay phone. If you put
> coins in first, I wonder if it would let you dial an 800 number?

Some pay phones are "private." They are intalled by the owner of the property and are not ATT or whatever other common carriers there are these days. Since that owner doesn't get paid if you call an 800 number, the phones block you from using them to dial toll-free numbers.

It may be that my recollection on this is out of date. I've noticed that calling cards now mention a 79-cent or 90-cent surcharge from payphones in the US. WikiPedia mentions that some 800 numbers reject calls from payphones because of the surcharge being paid by the owner of the toll-free number. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payphone
for information.

My suggestion is to be aware that prepaid cards _may_ not be useable at all payphones.

Given that phone cards expire and some phones do not accept 800 number dialing, you migh consider focusing your energy on --
your cell phone and its back-ups
carrying change
making collect calls
other forms of communication