Anyone remember early cellular days?

[Pabster]

So I was just thinking about it.

I recall my first mobile was a Radio Shack "Bag" model. That sucker was a tank, could get a signal anywhere. Cost was like $1.50 a minute or thereabouts.

And I remember that when traveling outside the local tower I had to give out a "roamer" number which the person had to call first to be routed properly. The advent of "automatic call delivery" was a godsend indeed.

 

[venkman]

Single line text displays and monochrome screens ftw!

 

[Shlong]

I remember the brick phones and my dad having a car phone in his car... lol.
My first phone was a startac with verizon, everyone was amazed at the size at first.

 

[pontifex]

i remember my friend's parents had a bag phone of some sort. big and bulky, lol.

 

[Randum]

yeah i rem the bag phone the adults had but the first phone we had was one of the original flip phones- but my dad got a star tac...and he still has it and its his main cell phone still...aside from a modern work one but...yeah he still uses that piece

 

[AgaBoogaBoo]

Star tac was awesome at the time is what I remember, never did get one because of the price though. Was anyone here using Mccaw cellular back in the day?

 

[Dr. Detroit]

Got my first cell in 2000 - was a StarTac with a 250 minute plan for $40/month

Great phone!

 

[BoomerD]

Bag phones...gawd I hated that thing...but it worked better than most of today's tiny phones. Better signal, better sound quality, and that was with far fewer cell towers than there are today.

 

[Old Hippie]

First mobil phone I ever saw was installed in a car.

The reciever and transmitter took up @ half the trunk.

I guess that really wasn't a mobil phone...or was it?

 

[Shawn]

We had a bag phone. Got it Dec 1992.

 

[Gothgar]

my dad had a car phone, huge ass thing and he could talk in his car, it was soooo cool


my first mobile phone was in 99 or 2000 Pac Bell Wireless, got a Nokia if I remember right...

 

[CptCrunch]

My first cell phone was the Samsung sch-8500, great, great phone. Bought it for the employee discount of $88 dollars when it retailed for $550. Still, up until a few years ago, did more things than newer phones did. It was with sprint, which didn't work at my house so I had to get rid of it. Great phone though.

and for kicks, I still wear a pager. Every time the battery dies, it resets to 1/1/94

 

[Perknose]

Those first huge ass car phones were a godsend on stakeouts. Too bad you couldn't pee into them as well.

<----- Former PI.

 

[Kadarin]

I was watching Lethal Weapon the other day, and laughed at Danny Glover talking into this briefcase sized phone.

 

[Pabster]

Originally posted by: BoomerD
Bag phones...gawd I hated that thing...but it worked better than most of today's tiny phones. Better signal, better sound quality, and that was with far fewer cell towers than there are today.

In fairness, that was partially because they ran at 3 Watts as opposed to around 600mW today. But yeah, towers were far and few between then. (Which required such high power output.)

I was LMAO the other day as I saw USCC actually has a new Motorola bag phone for sale. Of course it is digital now (CDMA) but it brought back some memories.

 

[thomsbrain]

My dad used to borrow a suitcase phone from work and call us on it on the way home from work. "Ooh, Dad is on the radio phone!"

My first built-in car phone experience was riding in a friend's dad's first-gen Lexus LS. He tried to show off by calling someone on the phone, but the sound quality was so poor that neither of them could understand each other and my friend's dad got really pissed off and started swearing. I remember thinking, "I'm not so sure this Lexus is all it's cracked up to be..."

 

[Duddy]

My 1st phone was an N-Gage. No touchscreen, camera or GPS!!! How the heck did I survive?!

 

[Old Hippie]

In fairness, that was partially because they ran at 3 Watts as opposed to around 600mW today.

I always attribute the better sound quality to the fact that it was analog.

To this day, I hear very few devices with a decent voice quality.

 

[Pabster]

Originally posted by: Old Hippie
I always attribute the better sound quality to the fact that it was analog.

To this day, I hear very few devices with a decent voice quality.

True enough. The best digital service can't compare sound-quality wise to a strong, clean Analog signal. Problem is, you could rarely get a strong, clean signal. But I agree that overall the voice quality was (IS) superior on AMPS.

 

[thehstrybean]

Originally posted by: Old Hippie
First mobil phone I ever saw was installed in a car.

The reciever and transmitter took up @ half the trunk.

I guess that really wasn't a mobil phone...or was it?

My grandpa worked for South Central Bell and he installed those things. You could rewire them and use them as CB transmitters, of course the power was WAY over the FCC limit...

 

[Duddy]

MY modified iPhone runs on 1.21 Jigawatts!!!