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Posted by Ken Abrams on December 27, 2007, 8:03 pm
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>The earliest
>cell phones were mounted in cars,
Not really.
The earliest "mobile phone" service used transceivers (made to look like a
phone) mounted in cars, but that service was not "cellular".
A "nit" to be sure but significant in some contexts! ;-)
IIRC, the "transition" was something like what is going on now.
That is, notice was given a LONG time in advance that the original service
was going to die and the users were pretty much left to find their own
solution.
***** Moderator's Note *****
As the former owner of a Motorola TLD-1000A, I can attest to the
dramatic difference between the old and new systems. The IMTS control
head was the thing most people though of as the "phone": it had a
dial, a handset, eleven channel-select buttons, and some other buttons
for various things (such as using the car's horn to signal an incoming
call). IIRC, it was about seven inches high, ten across, and about
five deep, plus a mounting bracket and cables.
The control head, however, was small compared to the actual radio: it
was about twenty-four inches long, about 15 wide, and five or six
inches high. It could only be mounted in a trunk, and I could see the
headlights dim when I keyed the PTT button!
The transition to cellular was much less painful for me than for
others: I sold the unit long before cellular started.
Bill Horne
Temporary Moderator
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Posted by on December 28, 2007, 5:13 pm
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>
> >The earliest
> >cell phones were mounted in cars,
>
> Not really.
>
> The earliest "mobile phone" service used transceivers (made to look like a=
> phone) mounted in cars, =A0but that service was not "cellular".
Actually I was speaking of _cellular_ phones, not the predecessor
system. When cellular phones first came out, IIRC, they were
generally available only as car mounted units. They were certainly
smaller than the predecessors, but still bulky. The portable "bricks"
were rare. The alternative was a bag phone which was cumbersome. But
it didn't take long for portable models to shrink down and car
installed models (and installation centers) ceased.
As other noted, the early cellular units were far more powerful than
later handsets. Presumably the number of cells within a region was
relatively small and the cells themselves relatively large. As demand
increased, they kept adding more towers and shrinking the cells.
I recall watching a rerun of the TV show "90210" and the character was
talking on his car cell phone, a handset connected by cord to the
dashboard. This at first seemed very strange to me until I realized
the episode was old and dated from the time cellphones were new and a
novelty.
Before cellular phones it was called "mobile" telephone service
because it was mounted in cars, as described elsewhere. This dated
from about 1948. At that time similar units were installed in deluxe
passenger trains.
A pioneer cell phone effort was the Metroliner train phones introduced
in 1969. These used a pioneer automated cell switching arrangement
and handoffs so that service was provided seamlessly between Jersey
City and Washington, even within the Baltimore tunnels (but not the
NYC Hudson tunnels). Previous posts discussed this in detail.
Others mentioned competing mobile telephone service _within_ Bell
System territories. I was not aware of that. Did those system
_seamlessly_ connect with the Bell Telephone network as did Bell
mobile phones? (The later generation of mobile phones had direct dial
in both directions.) So, users in the competing system had their own
direct phone numbers? This would represent a rare crack in the Bell
System monopoly.
> ***** Moderator's Note *****
> The transition to cellular was much less painful for me than for
> others: I sold the unit long before cellular started.
I would've thought under the old Bell System mobile telephone users
would've rented the radio set, as did other subscribers of Bell System
services. People had to buy the radio set?
Do you remember anything about the tarrifs for the old system in terms
of rates charged?
Would you recall how many watts the mobile unit put out?
I believe the old arrangement was that Motorola furnished the mobile
radio sets while the Bell System provided the service per an agreement
between the two companies. I don't know who provided the mobile base
stations or switching gear interfaces. This was a rare instance of
the Bell System using equipment not provided for by Western Electric,
although WE built plenty of mobile radios for the military. Motorola
got its start making car radios that were shielded from interferance
from the car's ignition system; at the time that was a big innovation
(thus the name "Motor").
I presume the old Bell mobile service was supported by the regular
Bell System personnel, not a separate subsidary? When I got my first
Bell Atlantic cell phone, I presumed it was supported that way but I
quickly found out the cell phone business was entirely separate. The
store personnel were clearly not the caliber of regular Bell System
people, none of that Vail tradition for them.
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Posted by DTC on December 29, 2007, 8:33 pm
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> Others mentioned competing mobile telephone service _within_ Bell
> System territories. I was not aware of that. Did those system
> _seamlessly_ connect with the Bell Telephone network as did Bell
> mobile phones? (The later generation of mobile phones had direct dial
> in both directions.)
The Bell System and other telco mobile phone service had 11 VHF
channels urban), and about the same Low Band (rural) and UHF
metropolitan) channels. The Radio Common Carriers (RRC) had 7 VHF
channels and I don't recall the UHF channels. Because they were
different channel sets, they did not work with each other.
In Texas, the deployment of Bell towers was kind of random, where
the RCCs were population density deployed.
With my Motorola Mocom and a Secode control head, I installed my own
channel sets and the Secode could decode both the MTS/IMTS telco
signalling format and the 2805 Hz RCC format.
>> ***** Moderator's Note *****
> I would've thought under the old Bell System mobile telephone users
> would've rented the radio set, as did other subscribers of Bell System
> services. People had to buy the radio set?
Southwestern Bell Mobile didn't charge for the unit rental. I could be
wrong and it was simply buried in with the $25 per month fee.
> Do you remember anything about the tarrifs for the old system in terms
> of rates charged?
I believe I was paying $25 a month for unlimted calls and full
roaming. Other states, like California charged by the minute. The
RCCs had a similar rate plan.
> Would you recall how many watts the mobile unit put out?
Bell originally used a modified Motrac with a tube power amplifier and
around 1976 they started using solid state units. I want to say they
were putting out 25 watts into the antenna. That means the transmitter
output was around 50 watts as there was a antenna duplexer. As many
times I connected a Bird to the sets, I simply just don't remember.
> I believe the old arrangement was that Motorola furnished the mobile
> radio sets while the Bell System provided the service per an agreement
> between the two companies. I don't know who provided the mobile base
> stations or switching gear interfaces. This was a rare instance of
> the Bell System using equipment not provided for by Western Electric,
I did come across a few mobile sets a Weco tag, but both Motorola
and GE made the units. I recall both Moto and GE in the racks at the
base stations.
All of this is going from memory thirty years back.
I do know for a fact that if you plugged in your mobile to the coax
running down the tower from a 6 dBd antenna, you could light up base
stations 400 hundred miles away.
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