1st Motorola Cell Phone Ever!

PhoneRinger wrote:
> Would you sport that phone?...:-p
>
> View the attachments for this post at: http://www.jlaforums.com/viewtopic.php?p=14415407#14415407
>

This phone looks like the 'second' phone. After the brick they had this
phone called, I think, Ultra or something like that. The Brick came with
the 'Stubby' antenna and this model had the longer one.
As an aside, several years ago I sold my Brick on Ebay. After the sale
the buyer wrote back to me saying that 'they' were very happy with the
phone. He said that it would require very little cleaning and then be
put in the 'Motorola Cell Phone museum' in Shaumburg, Ill. where he worked.

I was a proud Papa <G>.

--
Diving is life! The rest is just details.
W.W.W.I.

"PhoneRinger" <pickuptrk915.TakeThisOut@yahoo-dot-com.no-spam.invalid> wrote in message
news:HvadnarjjI1yVsTVnZ2dnUVZ_qHinZ2d@giganews.com...
> Would you sport that phone?...:-p
>
> View the attachments for this post at:
> http://www.jlaforums.com/viewtopic.php?p=14415407#14415407
>

Looks like a Motorola 8000[S], which was the first 'portable' cellphone
marketed. Their first cellphone (1973) was the DynaTAC
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1f/2007Computex_e21For...MartinC
which as you can see is about twice the size.

The first phone that would go in a shirt pocket was the UK manufactured
Technofone released early 1986. The originals looked a bit like this
http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.rigpix.com/mobphon...a/techn
certainly in terms of size.

Mine (actually a MkII replacement under warranty for SNo 32) is in the
Science and Industry Museum in Manchester.

cellphoneunlock.net <cellphoneunlock.net.2d93330.DeleteThis@cellbanter.com> wrote in
news:cellphoneunlock.net.2d93330@cellbanter.com:

> Their first cellphone (1973) was the DynaTAC
>> http://tinyurl.com/552xb3
>> which as you can see is about twice the size.
>

It was very expensive so we hung onto our bagphones for many years until
the prices came down. There were no subsidies. I have one in my
collection that still worked, perfectly, until they shut off AMPS. The day
before they cut off AMPS I called 611 on it on Alltel and told the TSR what
I was using to talk to her. She asked me to hold and a supervisor came
online who had been with the company since it was called 360
Communications. He and I had a great time playing with it that last day
and I talked to many of the assembled old timers on it who couldn't believe
someone still had one on the air.

Mine has a battery eliminator that plugs into the back end where the long
battery went. The cord on the bottom of it has a cigarette lighter plug
for 12VDC. To use it in the house, there is a 12VDC power supply that is
all one unit with an AC plug on the side and a cigarette lighter socket on
the bottom to plug the phone into.

A friend who had no sellphone had a family emergency up in upstate NY a
couple of years ago. I handed it to him to carry on his trip and asked him
to try it out on 611 a few times when he stopped. He found it worked
excellent all the way up and back connecting to various systems on A and B
AMPS.

They were 600 milliwatts and had a range with the rubber antenna on top of
about 8 miles to the tall towers sellphones used to connect to.

The finest replacement was the StarTac, used up to the last days of AMPS by
loyal fans.

"Larry" <noone.DeleteThis@home.com> wrote in message
news:Xns9AEE7FDFFC162noonehomecom@208.49.80.253...
> cellphoneunlock.net <cellphoneunlock.net.2d93330.DeleteThis@cellbanter.com> wrote in
> news:cellphoneunlock.net.2d93330@cellbanter.com:
>
>> Their first cellphone (1973) was the DynaTAC
>>> http://tinyurl.com/552xb3
>>> which as you can see is about twice the size.
>>
>
> It was very expensive so we hung onto our bagphones for many years until
> the prices came down. There were no subsidies. I have one in my
> collection that still worked, perfectly, until they shut off AMPS. The
> day
> before they cut off AMPS I called 611 on it on Alltel and told the TSR
> what
> I was using to talk to her. She asked me to hold and a supervisor came
> online who had been with the company since it was called 360
> Communications. He and I had a great time playing with it that last day
> and I talked to many of the assembled old timers on it who couldn't
> believe
> someone still had one on the air.
>
> Mine has a battery eliminator that plugs into the back end where the long
> battery went. The cord on the bottom of it has a cigarette lighter plug
> for 12VDC. To use it in the house, there is a 12VDC power supply that is
> all one unit with an AC plug on the side and a cigarette lighter socket on
> the bottom to plug the phone into.
>
> A friend who had no sellphone had a family emergency up in upstate NY a
> couple of years ago. I handed it to him to carry on his trip and asked
> him
> to try it out on 611 a few times when he stopped. He found it worked
> excellent all the way up and back connecting to various systems on A and B
> AMPS.
>
> They were 600 milliwatts and had a range with the rubber antenna on top of
> about 8 miles to the tall towers sellphones used to connect to.
>
> The finest replacement was the StarTac, used up to the last days of AMPS
> by
> loyal fans.
>

There was no technical limit on range, so I used one with slight difficulty
in Calais to book a hotel in England (~40km to mast) and on the DFDS Dana
Regina about six hours out of Harwich in the North Sea. Exactly how far
from land I don't know, but my estimate is ~100km!

"R. Mark Clayton" <nospamclayton.RemoveThis@btinternet.com> wrote in
news:od6dnTqCC4vUPAnV4p2dnAA@bt.com:

> There was no technical limit on range, so I used one with slight
> difficulty in Calais to book a hotel in England (~40km to mast) and on
> the DFDS Dana Regina about six hours out of Harwich in the North Sea.
> Exactly how far from land I don't know, but my estimate is ~100km!
>
>
>

I own this dual-band sellphone repeater:
http://www.cellantenna.com/repeater/cae50_gemini.htm
which was $US299 when I got mine but has gone up.

I bought the omnidirectional CAF822 stick antenna for my stepvan shop and
it's mounted just above the roofline for good coverage as the van turns.
Inside the van, the little panel antenna that comes with the repeater is
stuck to the bulkhead over my desk.

We took it out into the atlantic and were amazed at how far offshore I
could still use Alltel, even EVDO broadband internet, by hauling the stick
antenna up a halyard on the spreaders towards shore. 70 miles was about as
far out as we got and it was still giving the Verizon and Alltel phones
aboard good signals to use. We had one PCS phone aboard on ATT, but it
didn't fare as well on 1900 Mhz. The repeater covers all those bands
except iDen on Nextel.

70 db gain and an antenna 50' up help a lot on a boat!