Audichron Company

Audichron Company was a company founded in the 1930s by John Franklin in Doraville, Georgia [cite web|title="Audichron information"|publisher=VoIP electronic mailing list archive|author=John Novack|date=2005-11-21|accessdate=2007-08-29|url=http://lists.ckts.info/pipermail/voip/2005-November/001522.html] , to produce the Audichron, a talking clock. By the 1970s, there were thousands of Audichron time-of-day announcers in use all over the world. Audichron had also developed a machine to announce the temperature. During the 1970s and 1980s, Audichron began to manufacture other kinds of equipment besides time and temperature machines.

The Audichron sales force found sponsors such as banks for its time and temperature machines in a city. Once a sponsor had been obtained, Audichron would lease the machines to the local phone company. An Audichron field service engineer would then visit the telephone company and help install the Audichron equipment in the central office. The phone company would then hook up incoming trunks to the Audichron equipment and would bill the final customer (the bank) each month for the trunks and the Audichron equipment. Audichron received payments from the telephone company.

Audichron hired "talent" to come into their recording studio to make recordings. Customers had a choice of whether they wanted a male voice or a female voice on their announcements. During the 1950s, a lady named Mary Moore did the female voice and was replaced in about 1965 by Jane Barbe who specialized primarily in Time and Weather. Pat Fleet joined in 1981 with customer message recordings, coin amount requests and out of service recordings, but rarely did time and weather.

John Doyle continues to be the only male voice. From the 1980s, the female voices were provided by Barbe, Fleet and were joined by Joanne Daniels, who did number change announcments amd who was the time lady for most of the Western United States. [ [http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-lazarus29aug29,0,2466396,full.column?coll=la-home-center "Time of day calling it quits at AT&T"] , Los Angeles Times, August 29 2007]

The Audichron Company was acquired in 1989 by Electronic Tele-Communications, a manufacturer of telephone answering machines that was founded in 1949. [ [http://www.etcia.com/history.html Corporate History] , Electronic Tele-Communications, Inc. Retrieved on 2008-08-29.]

Patents

* Ref patent
country=US
number=3974338
title=Apparatus for automatic message reprogramming of a message announcement system
status=patent
pubdate=1976-08-10
gdate=1976-08-10
fdate=1973-06-25
pridate=1973-06-25
invent1=Luzier, Harman E
invent2=Colt, Jon C
invent3=Cobb, Douglas R
assign1=The Audichron Company
class=H04M1/64; H04M3/493; H04M3/53; H04M1/64; H04M3/487; H04M3/50; (IPC1-7): H04M11/10; G11B31/00; H04Q9/02

* Ref patent
country=US
number=4005491
title=Dampened transducer support apparatus for message announcing system
status=patent
pubdate=1977-01-25
gdate=1977-01-25
fdate=1975-05-23
pridate=1973-09-11
invent1=Walker, Walter P
invent2=Smith, Leary W
invent3=Cofer Jr, Frank H
invent4=Lewis, Jack E
assign1=The Audichron Company
class=G11B5/55; H04M3/487; G11B5/55; H04M3/487; (IPC1-7): G11B5/55; G11B5/76; G11B21/22

* Ref patent
country=US
number=4389546
title=Digital announcement system including remote loading and interrogation
status=patent
pubdate=1983-06-21
gdate=1983-06-21
fdate=1981-03-23
pridate=1981-03-23
invent1=Glisson, David
invent2=Huber, Gerald
invent3=Biskey, Bruce
assign1=The Audichron Company
class=H04M3/487; H04M3/53; H04M3/487; H04M3/50; (IPC1-7): H04M3/50; H04M15/00

* Ref patent
country=US
number=4406925
title=Message delivery system
status=patent
pubdate=1983-09-27
gdate=1983-09-27
fdate=1981-08-24
pridate=1981-08-24
invent1=Jordan, Royce D
invent2=O'Neal, Edgar L
assign1=The Audichron Company
class=H04M3/432; H04M3/46; H04Q3/62; H04M3/42; H04M3/46; H04Q3/62

* Ref patent
country=US
number=4446337
title=Method and apparatus for revertive automatic intercept message delivery in a telephone system
status=patent
pubdate=1984-05-01
gdate=1984-05-01
fdate=1982-06-07
pridate=1982-06-07
invent1=Cofer, Frank H
assign1=The Audichron Company
class=H04M3/52; H04M3/50; (IPC1-7): H04M3/42; H04M7/06

* Ref patent
country=US
number=4791666
title=Automatic intercept system interface for electromechanical telephone central office
status=patent
pubdate=1988-12-13
gdate=1988-12-13
fdate=1987-06-19
pridate=1987-06-19
invent1=Cobb, Douglas R
invent2=Glisson, David K
invent3=Fields, Raymond C
invent4=Cook, Kenneth L
assign1=The Audichron Company
class=H04Q3/00; H04Q3/00; (IPC1-7): H04M3/52

References