Old School Cell Phones

[Mr Tony]

A week or so ago I was cleaning out the basement when I found a box of old cell phones that I owned. I had a good chuckle and figured I'd post them to show you youngins what we used for phones 10-12 years ago (or more)

First one is a Radio Shack "flip"....remember when the Motorola flip phone was the thing to have? Radio Shack had their version. Only difference is the flip on the RS phone just covered the keys and not to hang up. Analog model

2nd batch were the Nokia 2160/2180 models. These were both digital and analog. The 2160 (purple one) was TDMA and the 2180 (woodgrain) was CDMA. But you could activate them on either network for analog only. That was cool. You didnt need to switch phones to switch networks

3rd one was the Nokia for AT&T (before it was Cingular)...model number escapes me. Love the "fat battery" on the back so you could go a week before charging

4th is one I remember fondly. Radio Shack INSTALLED phone. Sold a lot of those back in 94-96. This one mounted in the vehicle. No "portable" here..Had a bracket to mount it in the vehicle and hard wired to battery. Hands free was the speaker on the phone and a mic that you hooked to the base unit. Used one of those in my truck for almost 5 years with the magnetic external antenna. Worked great 3watts of power (not .6 like handhelds) to get out in the boonies

5th is one that I am still shocked at. Got it on Ebay for a buck 8 years ago from an estate sale thing. NEVER USED. I had the technical manual and there was a way to see how many minutes were used on the phone since inception and there was no way to clear it. It showed "00000"....now it shows "00001". I did try to call 611 from it and it worked. I still love the size of the base on that thing. ITS HUGE!!! Power button was a switch. And on the back they tell you how to make and take a call (I guess they needed instructions back in the day)

last is a transportable unit. No battery but plugged in the cig lighter. Used that for a little while after I got the new truck in 03...yes Verizon let me have an analog plan until I cancelled in 04 after they'd call me 2-3 times a month asking me to upgrade. I guess the "uber sexy" 29.95 for 60 minutes and 500 weekend minutes they wanted to get rid of (that was the only analog plan).

So there are some old school model cell phones

 

[dfergie]

Best one I had was from Cellular One and was a pre paid(my first cell phone bought in case I broke down camping, hunting etc...) ... a Uniden that I could talk anywhere on... Analog of course and pretty big compared to todays phones... the batteries weighed more than my current phone. (an LG flip)

 

[thomas34461usa]

Yeah my first one during the 80's was from Cellular One in Michigan. It concisted of a large bag that you would carry with the phone on the inside of the bag. You would have to pull out the wire to hook up to the cigarette lighter, then take the attena and stick it on your window for reception. I remember my Uncle having a Car Phone where if you picked up the receiver from the phone a mobil operator would answer and you would have to tell them the number to get connected. Do you all remember Jake and the Fat Man having one in his car?
Tom

 

[Van]

I had the first one in the line up, an old motorola that I actually donated a few years ago to some charity that was looking for cell phones.

 

[Agonizing Fury]

Yeah my first one during the 80's was from Cellular One in Michigan. It concisted of a large bag that you would carry with the phone on the inside of the bag. You would have to pull out the wire to hook up to the cigarette lighter, then take the attena and stick it on your window for reception. I remember my Uncle having a Car Phone where if you picked up the receiver from the phone a mobil operator would answer and you would have to tell them the number to get connected. Do you all remember Jake and the Fat Man having one in his car?
Tom

I also had an old bag phone from Cellular One in Michigan. After I bought a used Acura Legend that already had the phone kit for that exact phone, I installed it permanently. That thing would work anywhere. I really kind of miss the old analog bag phones for that reason. too many dead spots on these low power digital deals.

 

[Cyclone]

I just threw out my old 1996 Olympics logo'd Motorola phone. It was analog only, and I kept it and its power adapter in my wife's van just in case. Even though it was not activated, it could make 911 calls. When earlier this year they ceased analog and the thing became a brick.

 

[KE4EST]

I have still got 3 of those phones, and I guess I need to throw them out, I have started to throw the bag phone away a couple times, but it makes me think of one of the first I had.

 

[thomas34461usa]

know what you mean

I have still got 3 of those phones, and I guess I need to throw them out, I have started to throw the bag phone away a couple times, but it makes me think of one of the first I had.

Yeah, I know what you mean. I can't tell you all the times that I still had my first car (a 63 Chevrolet Impala) if I had a quarter for everytime I thought of it, I'd be rich! Shold of kept that Cell phoine and the bag too!

Thanks,
TOM

 

[Hall]

The Nokia is a 5160, I think... We had (still have it ... the kids use it as a play phone) it with Cincinnati Bell (an ATT partner who owned the Cincy/Dayton area of SW Ohio). I still have an old Audiovox monster of a phone around somewhere. It's *too* big and not "cool" enough for the kids to play with. It had a POS battery charger that allowed it to "rock" in the cradle and you'd end up not charging it the whole time that you thought it was charging. That resulted in partial charges and in turn, the dreaded "memory effect" on older-design batteries.

My brother had an old Motorola bag-phone many, many years ago and as others have testified to, it got a signal damn near everywhere.

 

[DWS44]

I had the one in your last two pics! Mine was actually mounted in the car. My parents bought it for me for my first car, as they had already had one for several years (they got their first in 89 or 90). It was cool to have a "car phone" back in the day...I was one of only a small handful in high school that had one. I had (still have, actually ) a bad habit of trading cars quite often, and those were a pain to have to have uninstalled from the old car and reinstalled in a new one everytime you traded. I think I had that in 3 different cars before I finally scrapped it for my first digital flip phone, a classic from the old BellSouth Mobility circa 95 or so. Almost never used it (hated carrying it around...it stayed in the car till I moved to SC and the heat killed it.) Moved up to the little StarTac with Sprint, which was hot ticket at the time (2000). Loved that it would fit on a small belt holster, and became the first cell phone I used religiously. The land line disappeared shortly thereafter. After a short run with a absolutely useless LG phone, I've had a steady diet of Samsung models since and been happy with them all...just recently moving to the new Instinct.

It funny to compare the Instinct to the old "car phone", or even the first digital flip phone! hehe

 

[SpiffWilkie]

I don't know how many of you have ever seen Corner Gas, but there was a great episode dealing with cell phones that this thread reminded me of. (If you haven't seen the show, watch it!). YouTube - CORNER GAS - Smashdown "Cell Phone"

 

[cybok0]

Yeah my first one during the 80's was from Cellular One in Michigan. It concisted of a large bag that you would carry with the phone on the inside of the bag. You would have to pull out the wire to hook up to the cigarette lighter, then take the attena and stick it on your window for reception. I remember my Uncle having a Car Phone where if you picked up the receiver from the phone a mobil operator would answer and you would have to tell them the number to get connected. Do you all remember Jake and the Fat Man having one in his car?
Tom

I had a bag phone here in PA. I bought a kit and had it installed in my truck. That was the cool thing back then to do, with the antenna sticking out the back window.

 

[thomas34461usa]

Corner Gas

I don't know how many of you have ever seen Corner Gas, but there was a great episode dealing with cell phones that this thread reminded me of. (If you haven't seen the show, watch it!). YouTube - CORNER GAS - Smashdown "Cell Phone"

Thanks that was hilarious
TOM

 

[bhelms]

I got my first bag phone with a Cellular One contract for installation in my wife's Isuzu in about '94. Paid $99 at the time, made a good Christmas gift that year. That system had a magnetic antenna on the roof. We tossed the electronics under the seat and put the handset where she could reach it. Plugged into the lighter. She used it a lot. I probably still have it somewhere.

Then about a year later I bought another bag phone with a "through the glass" stick-on antenna for installation in my new truck, this time from RS and for only 1-cent with a 1-year contract with Cell 1. Mounted the guts in the console and hard-wired it in. That phone was still in the truck when it was totalled 12 years and 186,000 miles later. It had been used hard for most of those years until I finally acquired a HH phone. When I removed stuff from the truck before it was signed-over, I decided to take that phone out. (But I left the antenna behind.) Still have the bag, port. antenna, instuctions, box, etc. Could be cleaned-up to look brand new! Never bought batteries for either. I had basic plans for both that included 30 mins. in the "local" areas. Anything with roaming (anyone faced with that anymore?) cost a bunch extra, but we hardly ever strayed from the "home 40".

Like others I miss the power of those 3-watt units as I live in a rural area. Fortunately the dead spots are becoming fewer and fewer as more towers are added.

I also have an early model NEC HH phone, also analog. Still powered-up last time I tried it.

Nostalgia! Cool thread, Iceberg...!

 

[HD MM]

Hell, that's nothing. Does anyone remember the old "Zach Morris" cell phones?

 

[jwfgeol]

 

[gasman882001]

I had the "5th" one pictured as my first phone. Still have it (old Sprint company) and mine came with the battery so I could walk around with it. Loved those old folding portfolio phones. Mine had a place on the right side where you could put a note pad to take notes while you talked.

Love pulling that out and showing my daughter or any other young kid!

 

[kb7oeb]

My first cell phone was a CDMA digital QCP-860, still compatible with verizon. Until then cell phones were too expensive for me and I used a pager and made free phone calls via my ham radio. Numeric pager service was about $2 a month

 

[satjay]

Just remember the cost when they first came out, only the few had them. Now if you dont have one your looked at as strange!