Question for former Soviet Blockers

[joycem10]

I know we have a couple of Russians and other Easterners, not sure if any of them are old enough to have seen a rotary phone or have conscious memories of the old days.

So I'm watching Gorky Park over the weekend...

http://www.amazon.com/Gorky-Park-William-Hurt/dp/B00004ZBVK

The setting is early 80s Soviet Union. Anytime a character is discussing something important in a room with a phone he dials the old style rotary phone and sticks a pencil in the number slot to keep the 'rotor' (dialer? piece of metal that goes around on rotary phones?) from returning to its original position. No explanation is given for why.

Was this some way of defeating bugs if your phone was bugged? Does it have some other puspose? Any insight.

 

[holy king]

that would simply mean that the last number is not actually dialed (?), as for that to occur the "rotor" would have to get back in its original position... hm... i dont know, i'm just about a few months to young to have actually used them myself...

 

[Shylock]

A rotary phone dials numbers by sending pulses to the service provider. The number 7 sending 7 pulses 1 sending 1 etc.

My guess would be to either keep the phone in limbo or to make noise on the line.

 

[The Yankee]

It would definitely serve to keep the phone off the hook, unless just taking the receiver off would do that trick like it does with modern phones. It's been quite a while since I used a rotary....