Historical Analog Cell Phone Discussion

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SCPD

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True, but if memory serves decades ago there was a mobile radiotelephone system out in
Alberta, which pre-dates AMPS (but might have been an early type of cell system),
using the 420/409MHz band.

Dave
It was called Aurora 400, the first form of cellular in North America. The down links were 419-422. High power mobiles were used or suitcase portable. It supported automatic dialing and incoming calls, but no tower hand off. You would learn the coverage of each site and know when to pull over, otherwise your call would drop when you switched towers.

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kayn1n32008

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Telus still has manual radiophone service in the Okanagan(silverstar site had activity on it this weekend) although it has a reduced number of sites and some radiophone pairs are now licensed to normal LMR users. Not sure what the actual system wide foot print is now. I have not been able to find coverage maps of the VHF radio phone system.
 

prcguy

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That does not sound like a cellular system. Most large cities in the US had something that sounded similar since the 1960s and I installed quite a few mobile phones for these systems in the early 1980s. In the US both major phone companies and private carriers had groups of frequencies and offered basicaly the same service. Most users had mobiles but several systems in Los Angeles, CA supported hand held phones.
prcguy

It was called Aurora 400, the first form of cellular in North America. The down links were 419-422. High power mobiles were used or suitcase portable. It supported automatic dialing and incoming calls, but no tower hand off. You would learn the coverage of each site and know when to pull over, otherwise your call would drop when you switched towers.

Sent from my SM-G900W8 using Tapatalk
 
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kayn1n32008

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That does not sound like a cellular system. Most large cities in the US had something that sounded similar since the 1960s and I installed quite a few mobile phones for these systems in the early 1980s. In the US both major phone companies and private carriers had groups of frequencies and offered basicaly the same service. Most users had mobiles but several systems in Los Angeles, CA supported hand held phones.
prcguy
Aurora was a full duplex system. It was also installed and used in Yukon with Northwest Tel. In BC Autotel was full duplex, I believe it was harris mobiles @25w.

What i heard this weekend was half duplex.
 

Hatchett

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I still have one or two of those old “radio telephone” transceivers around here.

In the US they were a traditional LMR based mobile telephone service. They were not “cellular”, in so much as they did not support shifting the call from one tower’s coverage to another while the mobile is in motion. A network of interconnected cells so to speak.

Depending on the provider, there was different levels of automation available.
Talk to the operator to dial the call for you.
Or “self dialing” if your transceiver was equipped with a DTMF pad.

The site you were communicating with was usually full duplex, but your radio could be full or semi duplex depending on how much you was willing to pay for it. If you wanted full duplex you could fork over the money to have a set with a mobile duplexer installed in your car to enable full continuous two way conversation. Otherwise you would use a simple half duplex transceiver like everyone else.
 

Darkstar350

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One of the first times i ever saw a cell phone was on "The Cosby Show" and they resembled somewhat of a large cordless phone also reffered to as "brick phones"
Pretty sure Motorola made those

The prices were astronomical - the cost of the phones were around 400 usd and the rates were something like 100 a month for about 30 minutes and this was in the early 80s...
 

MTS2000des

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