Old Cell Phone Ads

[k4kyv]

To see just how far affordable transportable cellphone technology has come, watch these old TV commercials from the 80s and 90s.

Old cellphone ads

[K3ZS]

Some of those old bricks had more power and when combined with an external mobile antenna, they had better range in rural areas.     I got one for a few dollars and was planning to use it when camping.   There are still many places the little ones don't have coverage.  They stopped all analog cell phone service so the brick became useless. 

[WA3VJB]

The audio quality was way better on the analog phones too, especially the brick phone, when compared with the early CDMA digital phones.

Audio quality improved and even exceeded the old brick up until maybe 5 years ago, when that colored-tooth appliance and other hands-free devices caught on.

Now it's to the point I can barely understand some callers, what with environmental noise and crappy wireless from head-to-phone.

I used to shock some people who made fun of my old brick phone, which I held onto way past the "transition," when I would tell them it was great for heating coffee.  I then turned it upside down and made like I was going to put the antenna in the cup to stir.

huh-HA !

[Ott]

Some of those old bricks had more power and when combined with an external mobile antenna, they had better range in rural areas.     I got one for a few dollars and was planning to use it when camping.   There are still many places the little ones don't have coverage.  They stopped all analog cell phone service so the brick became useless. 

Used to keep an old analog Moto bag phone (like the one below) in the trunk for those times when the flip couldn't find a tower... with three watts in the bag, it could find a tower from the deepest parking garage...

[w1vtp]

Some of those old bricks had more power and when combined with an external mobile antenna, they had better range in rural areas.     I got one for a few dollars and was planning to use it when camping.   There are still many places the little ones don't have coverage.  They stopped all analog cell phone service so the brick became useless. 

Used to keep an old analog Moto bag phone (like the one below) in the trunk for those times when the flip couldn't find a tower... with three watts in the bag, it could find a tower from the deepest parking garage...

I still have one of those "bag phones." Never had the heart to throw it away.  It worked great, especially with the outside mag mount ant.

[W7TFO]

We still have a Motorola 'Startac' in service.  It's called our 'elderberry'...

73DG

[k4kyv]

They stopped all analog cell phone service so the brick became useless. 

But the FeeCee still hasn't repealed that stupid rule against the sale of receivers that continuously cover the cell phone frequency range nor congress the law that tries to claim that it is illegal to listen to those frequencies, even though now the transmissions are effectively encrypted since all you would hear on an ordinary receiver would be digital hash.

[w3jn]

The audio quality was way better on the analog phones too, especially the brick phone, when compared with the early CDMA digital phones.

Audio quality improved and even exceeded the old brick up until maybe 5 years ago, when that colored-tooth appliance and other hands-free devices caught on.

Now it's to the point I can barely understand some callers, what with environmental noise and crappy wireless from head-to-phone.

Amen to that.  The audio compressors in the phones is, I believe, the main culprit.  Way too much background noise which chops the audio.

The only benefit of CDMA phones is their long battery life.  The only reason they have any range at all is the ubiquitous cell towers sprouting every quarter mile.

My wife's old StarTac was the best phone ever but lacked the absolutely critical functions like ability to log on to Facebook and text while driving at 70 miles an hour 

[K1JJ]

Anyone remember the ~1976 cellular Motorola Pulsar Radiotelephone?  It looked like a big office handset for the car.

Inside, it was a complicated maze of new digital chips and early LSI technology. I was expected to troubleshoot it down to the component level.  The first one came in with a "no transmit" tag. Within 10 minutes I managed to short it out so badly even the receiver was dead and the digital frequency readout was flickering like a cheap pimp's neon sign. That was my last job as a 2-way technician and left for good...

T

[w3jn]

I believe that was Motorola's first synthesized commercial radio.  A friend gave me a few circuit boards so I could harvest the 4016 programmable divider chips for a Drake MSR-2 that had a dead one - 4016s being unobtanium.  The circuit boards were cheap and the whole thing look unnecessarily complex.  I pity you for having to work on that mess, Tom!

[Steve - K4HX]

You guys are talking about new stuff.

[k4kyv]

I once tried to use a cell phone for remote audio to tone modulate  the transmitter for a test.  It didn't work.  For some  reason, as soon as I inserted a tone in the phone (speaker-to-mic interface) the damn thing would null out the tone.  Must have been like those DSP heterodyne eliminators in modern ham receivers.

I'm not how they did that or what for, or why they wouldn't want you to transmit a single tone over a cell phone.

[Steve - K4HX]

The vocoder is looking for human speech. They don't know what to do with a single tone.

[Opcom]

I once tried to use a cell phone for remote audio to tone modulate  the transmitter for a test.  It didn't work.  For some  reason, as soon as I inserted a tone in the phone (speaker-to-mic interface) the damn thing would null out the tone.  Must have been like those DSP heterodyne eliminators in modern ham receivers.

I'm not how they did that or what for, or why they wouldn't want you to transmit a single tone over a cell phone.

maybe they don't want you cheating and hacking in a dialup modem.

[Steve - K4HX]

Nope.  Read up  on CELP and the like.

[flintstone mop]

I think the battery pack was also used in my VHS camcorder. A large slender black hunk of a battery.