Remember When, Your 1st Cell (Bag) Phone

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MMRJR

MMRJR

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Can you remember back to your 1st wireless or cellular phone.....

1st Cell Phone.jpg
 
Yep. had one in my tool truck. It worked real good with a external antenna. Not too many cell towers around yet.
 
I had an Audiovox.

Didn't need an external antenna.

WAY better call quality than flip phones/brick phones of the day.

Plastic handset cradle fit perfectly in the ash tray of my POS s-10.

Looked like a custom install.
 
I had a Motorola bag phone in my boat it was good up to 50 miles off in any weather and I loved it . now i'm lucky if I can get a signal over 5 miles off in good weather .
 
My boss used to go to his truck to use the cell because it was cheaper to call long distance than the land line :lol:
 
I had an interesting mobile/ bag phone I was going to keep for a souvenir but lost track of it. The old Motorola mobile (installed in car) and bag phones were essentially the same unit., This was a mobile module, but it accepted A STANDARD DESK PHONE!!! It was designed for marine use. You could install it in your "yacht" and wire it up just like your house, with extensions throughout the "ship." You pick up the phone, you got a dial tone, and go from there

My first phone was a Motorola "brick" and I did not have than long got one of the first "flip" phones. I was sorry. Back then the bricks ran more power, and had a "real" antenna connector. I worked out in the field with spotty coverage, and had a mag mount roof antenna I could "throw out" there

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When the F-5 tornado 4-8-98 wiped me out a friend loaned me his bag phone that looked like the first post. After that I found an old house phone and commode. I put commode out by power pole and tapped into the phone line. I am sure people got a charge out of driving by and seeing me sitting on commode out in hay field talking on phone, Joe
 
MrJLR said:
I've only had one cell number in my life....since 2001

Jeff
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Gotcha beat. When I went to work for Motorola in 9? 93? Forgotten, Airtouch was the "big" folks in Spokane area, they later turned into Verizon. I've had that number since the mid 90's only cell no' I've ever had, and now have no landline, either
 
red67gts said:
When the F-5 tornado 4-8-98 wiped me out a friend loaned me his bag phone that looked like the first post. After that I found an old house phone and commode. I put commode out by power pole and tapped into the phone line. I am sure people got a charge out of driving by and seeing me sitting on commode out in hay field talking on phone, Joe
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????????????????????????You would not have tied a cell phone to the landline, so WT??
 
A story from some time ago, "maybe" the statute of limitations has run out

I used to have an amateur radio UHF/ VHF mobile transceiver, you could "do the dance"....hold your nose, twiddle your thumbs, hold six or eight buttons down on the radio and ZOOM the radio would go into a hidden 800mhz scanner mode. This was before "that band" was banned by the FCC

Anyhow, I came across some guy taking about picking up lids for the weekend. I thought "I've just GOT to share this with SOMEBODY"

I had recently had some interference on my amateur radio, and had been trying to track it down, so I had grabbed up an old CB I had, to snoop around those frequencies looking for it

Anyhow, there was a group here locally.......beer drinkers and 4wd nuts who hung out on local CB channel 8

So......................I rang up ch8 on the CB and held the mike up against the scanner, and rebroadcast this phone call for a bit.

TURNS OUT THESE GUYS KNEW THE GUY BUYING THE POT!!!! There was much discussion "on channel" for quite awhile!!!!
 
I bought this one in 92/3ish. It was top of the line. Cost me $350 if I remember correctly! I intentionally did not get a battery. It was for when I was up north in camp at work and there was no need to carry it around. It lived in my truck. I was tired of talking on the Tool Push's XJ and having him sit through my entire conversation with me! Let alone the "other" people you could hear on the waves. I still have the same cell number today.......same carrier for that matter.

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My boss, a huge douche bag, gave me his old bag phone in 1993 so that he could get one of those new smaller fancy phones. I was pissed that I got his old hand me down. He immediately regretted it and tried to get his old phone back. His boss, an even bigger douche, was tired of messing with cell phones and said NO!!! I've had the same number ever since.
 
67Dart273 said:
????????????????????????You would not have tied a cell phone to the landline, so WT??
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I said I tied a house phone to the line at the pole. Meaning I found an old land line phone in debris and used that because bag phone didn't work so well back then without many towers.
 
MMRJR said:
Can you remember back to your 1st wireless or cellular phone.....

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I got my first cell service through Verizon and they swore I would have coverage.
This was right around the time pagers were coming to an end and cells were taking over.
Well, I couldn't use the phone from home, or about anywhere else I needed it, so I picked up the Motorola bag phone exactly like your pic and things were a lot better (UNTIL I got my first bill for 350 bucks because every call I made was a roaming call)
I went round and round with Verizon over the fact they sold me a cell phone on a contract that I couldn't use because the service was too bad in my area, and wanted to charge me the fee for getting out of the contract.
All they would do was give me free minutes that I couldn't use anyway.

I got a different service that did have some coverage and swore Verizon was out of my life forever.
The new service worked better and better as the years passed and then Verizon bought them out.
I started to cancel that service and Verizon called and asked if there was anything they could do to keep me and I told them they could pay back everything I ever paid them before and I would consider it.

Nope.

In the end I ended up back on Verizon anyway.:soapbox:
 
Yup. Nokia bag phone. Damn thing would connect anywhere. Probably gave us all dain bramage.
 
Started with smaller brick not sure the model, then the Nokia bag as it had better range and signal. Nextel then iPhone from there. I too have had the same cell number since the early 90’s and my wife uses that same number today. Longest I have ever kept the same number on a phone(s).
 
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red67gts said:
I said I tied a house phone to the line at the pole. Meaning I found an old land line phone in debris and used that because bag phone didn't work so well back then without many towers.
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LOL turns out I can't read!!!
 
My first was a Motorola grey brick looking thing. I miss analog. You really could hear a pin drop. Nowadays I can hardly tell who is on the other end.
 
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