InterceptRadio.com Forums

Hi:

I ran across this site which is full of information about mobile radios from the late 40s until the early 60s.

http://www.wb6nvh.com/index.htm

A lot of information about the older stuff. I found this page while looking for information about one of the Motorola Dispatcher 'lunchbox' style portable radios. One watt on VHF high band and, if it could be put on 146.52, it might be useful. For what, I'm not sure but is a nice piece of history.

There is also information about 'old school' mobile phones. As I recall, service for them was very expensive. A friend's father had one for his business for a little while in the early 60s but gave it up quickly because of the expense. Anyone here have experience with 'old school' mobile telephone service?

Jeff KB7AIL CN88

Cool site.
The motorcycle radio history is interesting.
Although I was perplexed by the "hi-speed" & "Harley" reference.







My harley bash for the day.

_________________
</>

Thanks for the link. Lots of good stuff on his site.

_________________
" SILENCE IS CONSENT "

Made to Government Specs:
1) Measured with a micrometer.
2) Marked with a chalk.
3) Cut with an axe.

Jim N7UAP - Bellingham, WA / InterceptRadio.com

I suppose that depends on how old is "old". Early mobile service was low band with the base transmitting on 35mhz and the mobiles on 43mhz.
There were a total of 8 channel pairs. It seemed channel "ZO" was the default for most urban areas. In Seattle PNB was on ZO and Whidbey Tel was on ZY out of Langley.
This was a manual service using a mic or PTT handset.

Next there was MTS on 152/158mhz which was an 11 channel full duplex capable system. These channels were the "J" and "Y" series and assigned to telcos. There was also a set of 14 VHF RCC channel pairs.

In the not too distant future Secode encoder/decoders made it possible to have direct dial service (IMTS). I remember equipment from Glenayre, GE, and Motorola. At one time I had a GE rotary unit and a Motorola Pulsar II pushbutton unit.

Canada had a similar system called Autotel on the 152/158mhz pairs.

Next came UHF channel pairs on 454/459 mhz. Telco had 12 channels ("Q" series") using the same Secode system as VHF and RCC had 14 channels.

On adjacent UHF frequencies (454.675-454.975) is the airphone system which is still active in some areas. You can tell the airphone system by a constant DTMF idle tone.

I still have some coverage maps from the Pacific Northwest.

Those were the days when the Harley 74" was the fastest thing on the road. Only a few cars came close and maybe something like a Vincent in the bike world.

-----

Super information on mobile phones. I always wondered how they worked. Were the 'manual' the type where you had to contact an operator who would make your call? Or was is done like a ham duplex autopatch today?

Somewhere on that site is a bill for service from 1968/9. The user made about 20 calls in a month and was billed about $20. Can't remember the number of minutes total. Most of them were one or two minutes and a couple were about 10 minutes.

Jeff KB7AIL CN88

You manually key the mic a couple times and it would bring up the transmitter and ring the operator, same way that VHF marine radiotelephone works.

The Whidbey Telephone Company is still licensed for ZY (35.460), JP (152.570), and YK (152.660) under callsign KOP303.

JP and YK do still have the 2 Khz tones or dead carrier being transmitted.

Kerwin