"Sal M. Onella" wrote in message
...

I had an El Cheapo phone on my nightstand for years. It was a one-piece
unit that I laid face-down to hang up. It always gave out a chirp right
before the ring, which I imagine was related to the ghost ring your friend
heard.

In addition, that phone emitted an offbeat three chirp pattern every
evening
about 10:45. If my wife and I were there together, one of us would
usually
wisecrack about the FBI and phone taps. I imagine it had something to do
with testing the line. I had forgetten all about that.



I recall during my teen years in Fort Worth, TX (Southwestern Bell) in the
mid-80s, during the summer months I would stay up for most of the night. I
had one of those el-cheapo electronic handheld phones in my room and it
always emitted a quick chirp at the same time each night: 2:10 a.m., without
fail! My guess is that it was responding to some high-voltage blip sent
down the network by the phone company for maintenance tasks or something.
Cecil Adams covered this topic in his column "The Straight Dope."