I’m glad you asked. I had some success a couple of weeks ago after giving calls from LinkNYC kiosks another try. I found that if I stood perfectly still, did not turn my face away from the kiosk’s loudspeaker, and got close enough to the loudspeaker where the corona virus would lick my face, then I could make calls with decent enough sound quality for use on my Payphone Radio.

Wow, did I get it wrong. I put too much trust in my limited amount of testing, embarking on what I thought would be a reasonably reliable conduit for making calls of usable audio quality if I just made the appropriate compromises and assumed the proper posture.

Call after call from LinkNYC machines returned audio so garbled and mucked up as to be almost unintelligible. Listen to this one, intended to be called “Shut It Down”, referencing threats to shut down New York City altogether on account of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Some calls work fine enough, based on meeting above-mentioned criteria of not moving, not turning my face away from the loudspeaker, finding a kiosk in a very quiet spot, and not minding the fact that passers-by thought me sick or disturbed leaning against this advertising pillar, just talking.

But some devices, like the one used above, return garbage call quality no matter what I do, how loud I yell, how close I come to making out with the kiosk loudspeaker.

This is a very public way to make a phone call. I gave up on some calls when I detected people staring at me, probably asking why the hell this person is mumbling into an advertising platter. On one occasion I cut off a call when an individual stood not even three feet from me, staring.

I will continue to be a good sport and attempt to use LinkNYC for phone calls into my Payphone Radio, but I will have to survey and remember which kiosks make usable quality calls and which do not.