1940s BELL TELEPHONE "MOBILE TELEPHONES" MOVIE EARLY CELL PHONE / MOBILE TELEPHONE SYSTEM 90884

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  • เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 ต.ค. 2024
  • Created in the late 1940s, this film from Bell explains the operation of the Mobile Telephone Service (MTS) by showing how it can be used to make business more efficient. The film also shows some of the cutting edge equipment used in the system and shows how it was installed in vehicles (7:30).
    MTS was a pre-cellular VHF radio system that linked to the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN). As such it used both radio signals and telephone lines to connect parties. MTS was the radiotelephone equivalent of land dial phone service. The Mobile Telephone Service was one of the earliest mobile telephone standards. It was operator assisted in both directions, meaning that if one were called from a land line the call would be routed to a mobile operator, who would route it to one's phone. Similarly, to make an outbound call one had to go through the mobile operator, who would ask for the mobile number and the number to be called, and would then place the call.
    This service originated with the Bell System, and was first used in St. Louis on June 17, 1946. The original equipment weighed 80 pounds (36 kg), and there were initially only 3 channels for all the users in the metropolitan area, later more licenses were added bringing the total to 32 channels across 3 bands This service was used at least into the 1980s in large portions of North America. On October 2, 1946, Motorola communications equipment carried the first calls on Illinois Bell Telephone Company's new car radiotelephone service in Chicago.Due to the small number of radio frequencies available, the service quickly reached capacity. MTS was replaced by Improved Mobile Telephone Service (IMTS), introduced in 1964.
    All calls were placed by a suitably equipped telephone operator. Outgoing calls were placed when the operator connected to a base station (originally using a cord board, but by the 1990s could be done by dialing a code sequence from a TOPS position), then announced the call over the channel (giving the channel's name first), e.g., "Adams calling 2M-2368, 2M-2368, 2M-2368."
    The page would usually be repeated twice more after a pause. The called party had to have their unit on and the volume set at a level that allowed them to notice a call and then listen to the called number. If the called party heard an incoming call, they would then use the microphone to announce they were receiving the call, and the operator would allow the two parties to speak, monitoring for the end of the call and marking a manual ticket for billing.
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    This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit www.PeriscopeFi...

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  • @brandonwest8880
    @brandonwest8880 5 ปีที่แล้ว +3932

    I am watching this video on my mobile telephone. 😂

    • @dannygroom3327
      @dannygroom3327 4 ปีที่แล้ว +53

      Yeah yeah ok whatever.....

    • @ProctorsGamble
      @ProctorsGamble 4 ปีที่แล้ว +127

      Me too
      Didn’t even think about the irony until you mentioned it

    • @anibalbabilonia1867
      @anibalbabilonia1867 4 ปีที่แล้ว +26

      👋😂👍guilty!

    • @africanamerican1818
      @africanamerican1818 4 ปีที่แล้ว +49

      Saying no way, it'll never happen -- whilst watching on my modern cell phone -- fully enthralled

    • @thomasdaily4363
      @thomasdaily4363 4 ปีที่แล้ว +12

      That's awesome

  • @keithwilson5229
    @keithwilson5229 4 ปีที่แล้ว +789

    The biggest technological advancement in my house in the 70s was getting a super long curly cord that allowed you to go outside or in another room to talk... state of the art... woo whoo .... yes, we only had one telephone :(

    • @RickaramaTrama-lc1ys
      @RickaramaTrama-lc1ys 4 ปีที่แล้ว +7

      Yes and before everyone went Coo Coo for Cocoa Puffs~!!!

    • @Maxumized
      @Maxumized 4 ปีที่แล้ว +39

      Keith Wilson was your sister always on it?

    • @robertcroft8241
      @robertcroft8241 4 ปีที่แล้ว +36

      And We English would bring three things back from trips to the States. A Zippo, a phone with buttons and the long cord.

    • @rhuttrho88
      @rhuttrho88 4 ปีที่แล้ว +6

      Did you have a girlfriend to talk to?

    • @ronnysterling7694
      @ronnysterling7694 4 ปีที่แล้ว +39

      Keith Wilson I remember getting the 25 foot wall cord for the phone, talking outside was so bad ass.

  • @russwentz3957
    @russwentz3957 4 ปีที่แล้ว +1016

    From 1961 to 2011 my dad had a Two-Way Radio shop and was a General Electric Mobile Radio Dealer and sold and serviced the MTS and IMTS systems. I remember in the mid-seventies, my best friend and I were riding with my Dad in his business GMC step van. Dad asked my friend, "Do you want to call your mom on the phone?" Dad (Rotary-Dialed the number) on the IMTS set mounted to the wall of the step van. My friend said to his mother (in a tone of excited dis-belief), "Hi mom, I'm riding in Ed's truck!" Great memory, especially since my dad has past on.

    • @B81Mack
      @B81Mack 4 ปีที่แล้ว +57

      Russ Wentz, that's a great story and a great memory. Puts into perspective how much luxury we have in our lives today. Back then, something like that was extraordinary.

    • @russwentz3957
      @russwentz3957 4 ปีที่แล้ว +21

      @Robert Pearce Yeah, the 1970's were the heyday for the Two-Way Radio market. Dad was an intelligent and hard working man and business owner and earned every penny he made and then some! No, there weren't any coin operation, just used for a business field service van communications.

    • @russwentz3957
      @russwentz3957 4 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      @nm I know, what kinda crap am I trying to pass along here anyway!

    • @peterpiper7441
      @peterpiper7441 4 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      passed on, not past on.

    • @fidelcatsro6948
      @fidelcatsro6948 4 ปีที่แล้ว +9

      wow it must been exhilarating experience to communicate wirelessly back in the stone age..

  • @rais1953
    @rais1953 ปีที่แล้ว +237

    In the early 1960s I helped my father to build 8 miles of telephone line (poles and wires) after a rural automatic exchange was installed within reach of our farm in Western Australia. We were advised to use copper wire but that length (16 miles) of copper wire would have been too expensive so we used a soft type of steel wire and to our great relief it worked perfectly for a couple of decades until an underground cable replaced it. Now the same farm is within range of a mobile phone tower.

    • @rickmcdonald1557
      @rickmcdonald1557 ปีที่แล้ว +18

      I too have placed The 109 Steel Telephone wire as a lineman for The Bell System in 1969 and I still have my sleeve box with the aluminum sleeves to splice it and bridle it into the wire that went down the poles to a connector called a "Mouse Trap" so someone could attach it to their residence telephone. I really cherish those memories as you do and wish I could go back to those days again. 😃👍✌

    • @helloxonsfan
      @helloxonsfan ปีที่แล้ว +7

      *Things may change... but antennas stay the same...!!! (LOL)* 😂

    • @northcackalacky4694
      @northcackalacky4694 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      Rais
      I appreciate your comment!!!

    • @williamnavarre8169
      @williamnavarre8169 ปีที่แล้ว +5

      In American West, famously a lot of farms used barbed wire to transmit the phone signal.

    • @rais1953
      @rais1953 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@williamnavarre8169 Interesting dual purpose. I've never seen that but it would certainly work if the wire was connected to the fenceposts via insulators.

  • @prokesuk
    @prokesuk 4 ปีที่แล้ว +604

    "Great. That was the boss. Now we have to make another stop. I hate this damned phone!"

    • @ryguy57106
      @ryguy57106 4 ปีที่แล้ว +8

      prokesuk 😂😂

    • @2006gtobob
      @2006gtobob 4 ปีที่แล้ว +39

      That was their exact feeling, no doubt!

    • @big-oltires5167
      @big-oltires5167 4 ปีที่แล้ว +8

      I’m a trucker. I agree. Now we have Qualcomm - we don’t even need a phone

    • @big-oltires5167
      @big-oltires5167 4 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      B Christian funny scammer reply but how are the irs scammers going to constipate your belongings? Feed them lots of cheese and peanut butter? 😂😂😂

    • @big-oltires5167
      @big-oltires5167 4 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      B Christian also how can a warranty be used to officiate an arrest?😂😂😂😂😂

  • @zaptor1514
    @zaptor1514 4 ปีที่แล้ว +587

    Everyone had the same voice back then lol. It’s like they had one narrator for every film.

    • @nobodyspecial6513
      @nobodyspecial6513 4 ปีที่แล้ว +51

      Sounds like the same guy who used to narrate our school movies back in the 60s and 70s : )

    • @Thelonelyscavenger
      @Thelonelyscavenger 4 ปีที่แล้ว +72

      It's called the transatlantic accent. Look it up

    • @AtlasReburdened
      @AtlasReburdened 4 ปีที่แล้ว +25

      @@Thelonelyscavenger Nope, I choose to believe that it was just one irrationally busy dude. The nuclear bomb tests were just a cover for us shuttling him around the country on rockets.

    • @rivotrich7
      @rivotrich7 4 ปีที่แล้ว +39

      Guys dressed nice back then, fedora hat and suit for everyday wear.

    • @rivotrich7
      @rivotrich7 4 ปีที่แล้ว +29

      Yeah I’ve always wondered why that?? Seems like almost all men in the 30s-50s talked exactly like that, at least in narrated films. 🤔

  • @qwert2020
    @qwert2020 4 ปีที่แล้ว +597

    Never knew this existed since the 40s. I'm really impressed

    • @digitalarcheologist7586
      @digitalarcheologist7586 4 ปีที่แล้ว +20

      Ditto - Mandela Effect for me.

    • @Strassenelefant
      @Strassenelefant 4 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      I am also very surprised.

    • @74Spirit1
      @74Spirit1 4 ปีที่แล้ว +15

      Yes. Turned into a CB

    • @Daniel-rw2gy
      @Daniel-rw2gy 4 ปีที่แล้ว +31

      It’s more of a proof of concept.. wasn’t really fully in service yet

    • @grimtvboston326
      @grimtvboston326 4 ปีที่แล้ว +9

      LOL that's because it didn't

  • @agentul009
    @agentul009 ปีที่แล้ว +61

    I'm really impressed.I wasn't aware that such technology existed in the 40's.I was high tech for the period, and probably quite expensive.

    • @CFox.7
      @CFox.7 ปีที่แล้ว +8

      From comment just below
      "Mobile Telephone Service from AT&T (Bell) was $15 per month in 1949, with each call costing about 40 cents. While that sounds affordable, in today's dollars that would be $165 per month/almost $5 per call. There were limited channels, usually no more than 24 for a whole metropolitan area, you often had to wait more than an hour for an available channel to make a call.

    • @agentul009
      @agentul009 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      @@CFox.7 Great fact!Thanks for sharing!

  • @crossarmkid42
    @crossarmkid42 4 ปีที่แล้ว +368

    Marty McFly, to the people of the '40s: "I guess you're not ready for this, but your great grandkids are going to love it!"

    • @user-fw8rd5ud4q
      @user-fw8rd5ud4q 4 ปีที่แล้ว +15

      Greg Delia great scott

    • @kebler823
      @kebler823 4 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      🤣🤣🤣

    • @dianainclan2021
      @dianainclan2021 4 ปีที่แล้ว +7

      Hahaha, that ended up to be true for me anyway. Now.....The flying car!!

    • @LIBICU812
      @LIBICU812 4 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      What do you mean "great"? Not even "grand" here. LOL

    • @clavichord
      @clavichord 4 ปีที่แล้ว +7

      Well, you're the Doc, Doc!

  • @julianhermanubis6800
    @julianhermanubis6800 4 ปีที่แล้ว +984

    This is even more remarkable when you consider this service was available before most American homes had television.

    • @pooorman-diy1104
      @pooorman-diy1104 4 ปีที่แล้ว +26

      I want that classic mobile phone model ..to replace the boring thin rectangular shape iphone/android ....

    • @sgillman16
      @sgillman16 4 ปีที่แล้ว +18

      Most people still had black and white televisions until the late 1990s too. Long after real mobile phones.

    • @11sfr
      @11sfr 4 ปีที่แล้ว +70

      @@sgillman16 that's not true at all, more than 50% of households with televisions had a color TV by 1972, and 98% of TV households had color by 1999. It was actually kind of hard to even find new black and white TVs for sale by the late '90s

    • @hewhohasnoidentity4377
      @hewhohasnoidentity4377 3 ปีที่แล้ว +19

      @@11sfr I had a black and white tv in 1996

    • @steringp1434
      @steringp1434 3 ปีที่แล้ว +21

      @@hewhohasnoidentity4377 You may have owned one in 1996 but when did you buy it? 20 years before?

  • @ChristianKoehler77
    @ChristianKoehler77 3 ปีที่แล้ว +450

    'Sometimes a larger battery .. is needed for additional power.'
    Yup. Still in 2021.

    • @onyx8231
      @onyx8231 3 ปีที่แล้ว +15

      A "larger battery AND GENERATOR!" I'm thinking your car can only do two things at this point. Transport the driver and make phone calls.

    • @Nekotaku_TV
      @Nekotaku_TV 3 ปีที่แล้ว +16

      Batteries have evolved extremely slow.

    • @retroguy9494
      @retroguy9494 3 ปีที่แล้ว +8

      What amazed me is that you can't even BUY a mobile telephone for your car anymore. New I mean. Cell phones have totally replaced them.

    • @ChristianKoehler77
      @ChristianKoehler77 3 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      @@retroguy9494 You can.
      For example the
      Pei Tel PTCarPhone 6 is a modern car phone.
      It is a modern LTE/4g device. It supports voice over LTE (VoLTE) as well as 3G and 2G (GSM). In addition to voice telephony it supports 4G data and it is a mobile Wifi hotspot. With an external antenna you can expect much better reception than a smartphone inside off the car.
      But that thing is expensive (over 600 € + installation cost).

    • @onyx8231
      @onyx8231 3 ปีที่แล้ว +7

      In the early 2000s, I had a Nokia dock/speakerphone kit installed in my truck that never really worked right. So I wired it to switch the audio to an old payphone handset receiver that I had in my center console whenever I picked it up. It looked exactly like these guys in the video. I did it because those receivers are a lot easier to hold with your shoulder than cellphones. LOL

  • @CritterFritter
    @CritterFritter ปีที่แล้ว +614

    My dad retired in 1980, and I asked him once if he kinda wished he had owned a cell phone. He replied, “Hell no. If I carried a cellphone, I would have never had time to think.” He certainly had a point.

    • @absolutelyfookinnobody2843
      @absolutelyfookinnobody2843 ปีที่แล้ว +13

      He kinda had a point. But he is your dad, so you're biased

    • @daitos1955
      @daitos1955 ปีที่แล้ว +31

      Mobile phones are great. The problem starts with the internet connectivity, you get so distracted checking your FB, Instagram, Whatsapp etc. etc. that you stop thinking, maybe that's what your Dad meant.

    • @sage_x2002
      @sage_x2002 ปีที่แล้ว +15

      @@daitos1955 Internet connectivity is great. The problem starts with the social media apps.
      Internet connectivity itself is not bad, given you can do things on the go you otherwise couldn't. Some important notifications can be pushed through HTTP requests which is much better than using phone lines and DTMF tones to connect.

    • @daitos1955
      @daitos1955 ปีที่แล้ว +7

      @@sage_x2002 like credit cards, they're a double bladed weapon, they're of great help or they can financially bury you.

    • @sage_x2002
      @sage_x2002 ปีที่แล้ว +5

      @@daitos1955 Yep, reason why not to use credit cards, rather debit cards and get a loan. Loans usually have lower interest too, compared to credit cards, for those who really want to do that instead of saving up

  • @dirtydave2691
    @dirtydave2691 4 ปีที่แล้ว +171

    My Dad worked for Bell Telephone for 30 years. During the massive fiber optic upgrade in the 80's I remember him saying it wouldn't be long before phone lines were going to be a thing of the past. He lived long enough to see the marketing of cell phones to the masses.

    • @tigerintheboro
      @tigerintheboro 2 ปีที่แล้ว +14

      My father started in the early 70's with Southern Bell, then it changed to Bell South, then was bought out by AT&T in 2006. He retired in 2007 and he always told me the same thing. Today I don't know anyone that still has a landline at home.

    • @MaximRecoil
      @MaximRecoil 2 ปีที่แล้ว +15

      @@tigerintheboro I still have a landline, since it's the most reliable type of phone service. I'm 47 years old and I don't recall even one instance in my entire life of my phone line not working. Even during the Great Ice Storm of 1998, I lost power like most everyone else around here, but I didn't lose phone service. Also, it allows me to use classic rotary phones as-is.
      My mother and my aunt (her older sister) still have landlines too. My aunt has had the same phone number since the mid-1960s.
      The masses mostly ditching landlines in favor of glorified walkie-talkies has mostly ruined telephone service though, because most everyone you talk to on the phone these days is on one of those ridiculous little devices and the sound quality sucks. To make matters worse, many people who say they have a landline don't really have a real landline at all, but rather, VoIP, which often sucks almost as bad as cell phones. About the only time I get sound quality on par with what I grew up with in the '80s is when my mother calls, because we are both on POTS landlines.

    • @TL....
      @TL.... ปีที่แล้ว +3

      @@MaximRecoil in the 1993 movie Home Alone , the phone lines go down after a snowstorm and thats why the boy Kevin in the movie wasnt able to phone the police when the 2 bad guys were up to no good

    • @bobl78
      @bobl78 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@tigerintheboro yes, they just work and never have dead batteries

    • @travisihs08
      @travisihs08 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      @Tiger in the Boro my parents do for some unknown reason. The only people who call that number is telemarketers and people trying to scam them. They literally give the phone company $12 a month to hang up up on people.

  • @chrisdavis3055
    @chrisdavis3055 3 ปีที่แล้ว +504

    Mobile Telephone Service from AT&T (Bell) was $15 per month in 1949, with each call costing about 40 cents. While that sounds affordable, in today's dollars that would be $165 per month/almost $5 per call. There were limited channels, usually no more than 24 for a whole metropolitan area, you often had to wait more than an hour for an available channel to make a call.

    • @kreuner11
      @kreuner11 ปีที่แล้ว +34

      This is why all mobile phone are now Cellular, by reducing the range of antennas, and increasing the number of them, based on user density, additionally making the protocols more efficient and automated, the successor AMPS system allowed a much better and cheaper experience

    • @madriditunes7021
      @madriditunes7021 ปีที่แล้ว +26

      But you cannot compare, the service could cost not only 15 dollars, but 150 dollars and it would be profitable, it was dedicated to companies generating more work to make money, just with a call diverting a truck to serve a client, it would be more than profitable to pay these 15 dollars.

    • @troy2000me
      @troy2000me ปีที่แล้ว +22

      @@madriditunes7021 Yes, very different use case. It was for businesses. In today's money the $5 call would save potentially a few hundred bucks in labor and gas to re-send a different truck on a long trip.

    • @KrustyKlown
      @KrustyKlown ปีที่แล้ว +56

      AT&T normal long distance calls were VERY EXPENSIVE for decades. The source of countless family arguments each month ..."who the hell called.... for 30 mins !!!!"

    • @dbstoo
      @dbstoo ปีที่แล้ว +83

      @@KrustyKlown AT&T long distance was expensive for two main reasons. Phone service was provided by AT&T as a public necessity. The profits from long distance calls were used to subsidize the universally available wire-line phone service. A person living 20 miles from the nearest town was still entitled to phone service at rates comparable to the rates in town. It could cost AT&T hundreds of dollars per month to provide that hardware and the network it connected to. The second reason for the expense was simple. It was to discourage overuse of the long distance circuits. In 1946 a call from San Francisco to Los Angeles would have exclusive use of 400 miles of wire, dozens of amplifiers and maybe even a microwave or radio link. AT&T carefully set the prices low enough that it was practical to make business and important calls and at the same time it was expensive enough that parents did not let the kids spend more than a few minutes talking to grandma in the hills of Tennessee.
      Disclaimer: I was an AT&T employee back in the 70s.

  • @steve-usmcvet8934
    @steve-usmcvet8934 4 ปีที่แล้ว +213

    Video: "He called long distance"
    My son: "Dad, what does 'long distance' mean?"

    • @JeffDeWitt
      @JeffDeWitt 4 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      Check this out, Joe Friday making a long distance call in 1954. It wasn't until I heard this that it really hit me what a big deal it was making a long distance call in the old days. voxperitus.com/telephone-history/

    • @lordapophis5723
      @lordapophis5723 4 ปีที่แล้ว

      @john hansberry that's hilarious!!!

    • @BrilliantDesignOnline
      @BrilliantDesignOnline 4 ปีที่แล้ว +9

      And why is he spinning that ring with his finger?

    • @AdrianBawn
      @AdrianBawn 4 ปีที่แล้ว

      bash.org/?142934

    • @billolsen4360
      @billolsen4360 4 ปีที่แล้ว +10

      Next questions could be: "Dad, what's an 'operator'?" or "A 'Phone Booth?' What's that??"

  • @ChechiDLR
    @ChechiDLR ปีที่แล้ว +9

    There's something so wonderful about these informational videos. Just simple, direct a bit innocent and authentic. Modern videos typically are patronizing, juvenile, manipulative, over the top and superficial.

  • @Thx1138sober
    @Thx1138sober 4 ปีที่แล้ว +700

    When I was age 8 in 1966, I got a pair of walky-talkies for Christmas that were on the same frequency as the Mobile Telephone service and you could listen in on mobile phone calls and even sometimes talk to the people making the calls. I had several Mobile phone people tell me that they were going to report me to the FCC, but they ain't never found me yet.

    • @stevek8829
      @stevek8829 4 ปีที่แล้ว +65

      Children's walkie talkies were on CB 14, 11 meters, and AM and mobile telephones were on VHF FM, 2 meters. Nice story but it couldn't happen.

    • @markmalasics8413
      @markmalasics8413 4 ปีที่แล้ว +31

      @Jim Robinson although many of the facts behind this story are missing, I find it highly doubtful that a parent would give an 8 year old child a PAIR of professional grade Motorola HT200 hand-helds as a toy for Christmas. While it "could have happened" in all likelihood it probably didn't. I can't imagine parents, out Christmas shopping, going to a communications outlet, looking at these heavy units and not knowing they weren't to be used as toys (nor a salesman not asking the intended use when helping the couple) and plopping down the cost of these radios for children's toy when they could have more easily went to the department store and gotten a pair of $20 walkie talkies, specifically built for kids.

    • @finscreenname
      @finscreenname 4 ปีที่แล้ว +27

      Ours, during the 70's used to drive truckers on the interstate nuts and they would always say the FCC is coming for us.

    • @markmalasics8413
      @markmalasics8413 4 ปีที่แล้ว +11

      @Jim Robinson Nothing worse than people who use that comical phrase "just saying." Of course you're just saying, you typed it, didn't you? And while you're going to use that, I'll return the favor by telling you what you're "just saying" has absolutely nothing to do with the leading comment, which was about a set walkie talkies given to an 8 year old child for Christmas. That's completely different to a child from police officer's family who "got" a hold of dads HT. If you're willing to swallow the Christmas gift story hook, line and sinker, that's your choice. I'll question it strongly based on extenuating circumstances.

    • @gw5309
      @gw5309 4 ปีที่แล้ว +12

      Thx1138sober Hey Brother, born in ‘58 myself. I believe you. Also think you are in the clear.

  • @OMalMalamutes
    @OMalMalamutes 4 ปีที่แล้ว +280

    I feel like a time traveler watching this on my smartphone.

    • @kolebuscher5733
      @kolebuscher5733 4 ปีที่แล้ว +9

      We are bud

    • @JxT1957
      @JxT1957 4 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      imagine telling those people back then that in the 2000s many people will believe the earth is flat

    • @jamesbieniek6583
      @jamesbieniek6583 4 ปีที่แล้ว

      I love these old briefs

    • @gregorykayne6054
      @gregorykayne6054 3 ปีที่แล้ว

      I'm 67. This would have been my father's world just before my birth and I am watching it Smartphone.

  • @ProctorsGamble
    @ProctorsGamble 4 ปีที่แล้ว +340

    80 years later we still have dead spots on the interstate!

    • @markplott4820
      @markplott4820 4 ปีที่แล้ว +5

      my GSM service has no Dead spots.
      Its towers are Smaller and they are every 500 feet or so.
      and GSM offers PCS services.
      I can even use my Phone as a MODEM with a USB.

    • @mrradio2187
      @mrradio2187 4 ปีที่แล้ว +7

      @Etienne Mohammed Omar's widow wants her Sat Phone back....

    • @burgermeister7525
      @burgermeister7525 4 ปีที่แล้ว +11

      I still hit dead spots when driving through Centerville.

    • @dalemassicotte6198
      @dalemassicotte6198 4 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      That's because you have Sprint or Tmobile

    • @rzu7120
      @rzu7120 4 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      Mark Godfrey Verizon sucks in Oklahoma and other areas

  • @Tampo-tiger
    @Tampo-tiger 2 ปีที่แล้ว +13

    I love the cheerful music they used on these bulletins. Post war years seemed to be the most optimistic era in the last 100 years.

  • @roachtoasties
    @roachtoasties 5 ปีที่แล้ว +531

    Cool. When is this service coming to my community? I can't wait.

    • @CumminsDslPwr
      @CumminsDslPwr 5 ปีที่แล้ว +53

      We're sorry, but the number you are trying to reach is not in service, or has been disconnected due to the Gooberment owned FCC taking away that frequency range for its own needs. Please check the number or try your call again after a revolution. Message ID # 1776.....LOL !

    • @rancidpitts8243
      @rancidpitts8243 4 ปีที่แล้ว +26

      It will be available to serve you in about 70 years ago. Please contact us then, thank you.

    • @markplott4820
      @markplott4820 4 ปีที่แล้ว +8

      AKA Carphone.

    • @garymckee8857
      @garymckee8857 4 ปีที่แล้ว +6

      Soon very soon.

    • @randyralls9658
      @randyralls9658 4 ปีที่แล้ว +19

      Wait. What if they use this technology to track people?

  • @electronicsNmore
    @electronicsNmore 4 ปีที่แล้ว +239

    Love watching these old clips. Thanks for the upload!

    • @pineapplesideways3820
      @pineapplesideways3820 3 ปีที่แล้ว

      Right bill

    • @dianainclan2021
      @dianainclan2021 3 ปีที่แล้ว

      Me too

    • @dianainclan2021
      @dianainclan2021 3 ปีที่แล้ว

      So welcome! It's kinda primitive 😆

    • @jaythomas3180
      @jaythomas3180 3 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      I wonder if any of these old units still exist in working condition. I'd love to see a demonstration with a personal FM transmission.

    • @dianainclan2021
      @dianainclan2021 3 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      @@jaythomas3180 maybe you can see them at your local Bell company.

  • @dannygroom3327
    @dannygroom3327 4 ปีที่แล้ว +397

    It'll never happen.....
    Way to dangerous, using a "phone" whilst driving....

    • @CheezyDee
      @CheezyDee 4 ปีที่แล้ว +21

      If you looked carefully, they didn't include buttons to distract you, you HAD to talk to the operator to make a call. But don't call her Siri, that's probably not her name.

    • @anotherkat4u
      @anotherkat4u 4 ปีที่แล้ว

      you talk silly talk ,,,,.=^oo^=,,,,

    • @dannygroom3327
      @dannygroom3327 4 ปีที่แล้ว +14

      @John C . Our govt has banned it, many years ago, still see people at the wheel with a phone in hand though. More dangerous than drink driving imo.

    • @dehoedisc7247
      @dehoedisc7247 4 ปีที่แล้ว +10

      in case you didn't notice, the man using the phone was NOT the driver, it was the passenger. So, it was Not dangerous, fool.

    • @ZIPPSmedia
      @ZIPPSmedia 4 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@dannygroom3327 - That's actually been proven to be true, btw!

  • @Dagustind
    @Dagustind ปีที่แล้ว +123

    We had a scanner at work and in the early 90s we could listen in on cell phone conversations. At first, you would hear "you'll never guess where I'm calling from" a lot. About a month later, after they got their first bill, it was "hey, I'm on my cell. let me call you back when I get to a (home)phone". We also caught someone cheating on their spouse. Someone from our shop ended up calling the guy and told him that we could hear everything he was saying. He was actually pretty grateful for the heads-up.

    • @Lambossin
      @Lambossin ปีที่แล้ว +5

      This is a crazy story!

    • @TheFoolintherainn
      @TheFoolintherainn ปีที่แล้ว +19

      In the 80s-90's, We could take a baby monitor outside under telephone wires and catch neighbors conversations!

    • @CarsCatAliens
      @CarsCatAliens ปีที่แล้ว +7

      Yup, I had a scanner as well. If I remember correctly it would scan thru many frequencies rapidly. I heard the teen boy 3 houses down telling his best friend that he wanted to be a women.. this was in the early 90s so it wasn't as common and accepted as it is today... But yeah, I would listen to all sorts of conversations. Once in a while you would know who it was , other times a mystery!!!

    • @TheFoolintherainn
      @TheFoolintherainn ปีที่แล้ว +4

      @@CarsCatAliens that's funny, my grandparents still had a party line, my sisters used to pick up the phone, keeping their finger on the receiver, unscrewed the microphone Part, unhooked that so they couldn't hear them
      carefully, listen to The neighbors!
      baby monitors were a thing in the 80s & 90s
      But I started working in law offices as a teenager, later in life I was a director of a psychiatric halfway house-
      I've heard too much!
      for the last 20 years, I don't want to know-I don't listen to conversations, read diaries-some days I don't even ask people how they are lol!
      I don't need to know -
      I'm good!
      Haha!
      Oh yeah, Clara on Mayberry r.f.d. was a real thing.

    • @renakunisaki
      @renakunisaki ปีที่แล้ว +8

      I accidentally tuned into a telephone call when trying to adjust my TV... What a difference from today.

  • @danor6812
    @danor6812 4 ปีที่แล้ว +147

    LOL. What a joke, this idea will never catch on...

    • @andycraddock7677
      @andycraddock7677 4 ปีที่แล้ว

      dano r : Funny!!

    • @troyevitt2437
      @troyevitt2437 4 ปีที่แล้ว +6

      So I says to Mable, I says, "New-fangled flapdoodle! Next think ya know, they'll say we're going to the moon! Get a load of that-THE MOON! Har Har Har!"

  • @sakibalamazad1971
    @sakibalamazad1971 3 ปีที่แล้ว +27

    Presentations and voice behind the camera was absolutely divine in old days 💥

  • @jackbennett4828
    @jackbennett4828 ปีที่แล้ว +77

    Thank you for the video and EVERYONE commenting how they knew about this. My dad had a rotary dial phone in his car before 1970 and I wondered if he was some type of special ops G....or if I imagined the whole thing! LOL Thank you all!

    • @26MECH
      @26MECH ปีที่แล้ว +4

      How rich are you? Lol

    • @jackbennett4828
      @jackbennett4828 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      @@26MECH special ops G rich lol

    • @26MECH
      @26MECH ปีที่แล้ว +2

      @@jackbennett4828 lmao hell yea I dig it

  • @AnnaLVajda
    @AnnaLVajda 4 ปีที่แล้ว +79

    Nikola Tesla predicted 100 years ago that people would have devices for information that would fit right in their vest pocket.

    • @gingerelvira6587
      @gingerelvira6587 4 ปีที่แล้ว +22

      Whats a vest

    • @bcgrittner
      @bcgrittner 4 ปีที่แล้ว +5

      There was a gentleman who worked for RCA back in the late forties. He predicted communication satellites, hand held communication devices, etc. I can't remember his name, but he sure was spot-on.

    • @tronaboron2064
      @tronaboron2064 4 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      The cell phone is here but we're are those vest jackets damnit I want one!🌀🌀🌀🌀

    • @stainlesssteelfox1
      @stainlesssteelfox1 4 ปีที่แล้ว +6

      @@bcgrittner Are you talking about Arthur C Clarke? While he didn't technically invent geostationary comm sats, he was the one who popularised them. Though hie were a trio of giant manned stations at 120 degrees around the orbit, allowing them to cover the entire Earth. The actual person who first proposed them was a Slovenian engineer by the name of Herman Potočnik, in 1928, though he didn't suggest them for mass broadcasting, simply as relays. Going back further Tsiolkovsky in 1903 was the one to first describe a geostationary satellite.

    • @bcgrittner
      @bcgrittner 4 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      @@stainlesssteelfox1 You are probably correct. Clarke did, indeed, popularize the satellite theory, but there were others. There was even a theory of radio relay by satellite in Germany in the 1920's. Clarke even considered sending astronauts to space to replace the burned out vacuum tubes in the satellites. There was a Dr. Gary Gordon who worked with the geostationary satellite theory and became part of the team that created the TIROS weather satellites of the 1960's. I vividly remember the TELSTAR satellite from 1962. That was not geostationary, but was remarkable. And, we progress.

  • @alphonsocarioti512
    @alphonsocarioti512 4 ปีที่แล้ว +72

    1945: "Mike, how's the construction job going?"2020: "Mike, we have detected a problem with your Microsoft account."

  • @cindytepper8878
    @cindytepper8878 4 ปีที่แล้ว +82

    When I was a kid there was an older lady in the neighborhood that was a retired operator from Bell Telephone. They trained her to be one of the first mobil operators in Philadelphia. She told us that the first car phone in Philly belonged to one of the Wanamakers of the Wanamaker's Department Store family. I forget exactly what she told it it cost but I remember thinking it was more than most people make. She said he used it a lot. I guess they had the money

    • @Anarchist86ed
      @Anarchist86ed 4 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      Now they literally give phones away. Joke was on them.

    • @cindytepper8878
      @cindytepper8878 4 ปีที่แล้ว +10

      @@Anarchist86ed She told us about it in the 70's when we first started seeing people around with car phones. She was talking about the late 40's, early 50's. I don't even know if she said what the equipment cost. It was the rate per minute that shocked us. It was something crazy like 5 or 10 dollars a min. Huge money in 1950ish.

    • @bushmaster1740
      @bushmaster1740 4 ปีที่แล้ว

      Trading Places?

    • @RayJorg
      @RayJorg 4 ปีที่แล้ว +5

      @@cindytepper8878 I remember getting 600 dollar a month phone bills. My boss was dropping several thousand dollars a month. Ugh.

    • @iamasmurf1122
      @iamasmurf1122 4 ปีที่แล้ว

      Why do you women go online and just rant about some boring story no one gives a shit about ?

  • @StuffBudDuz
    @StuffBudDuz 3 ปีที่แล้ว +254

    Even more amazing is how Joe knew the truck had plenty of room for the undisclosed amount of "stuff" they had to pick up.

    • @MirlitronOne
      @MirlitronOne ปีที่แล้ว +28

      Or that he bothered to answer the phone.

    • @Leatherkid01
      @Leatherkid01 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      😂😂😂

    • @michaelbolton2741
      @michaelbolton2741 ปีที่แล้ว +16

      A good driver (especially one doing what is known today as LTL, Less Than Truckload) knows what he has on his truck/trailer. 😉

    • @michaelbolton2741
      @michaelbolton2741 ปีที่แล้ว +8

      @@MirlitronOne Being treated as a business telephone, he would have answered. Different mores, back then.

    • @infesting
      @infesting ปีที่แล้ว +13

      The company picks up the same packages from each business. So they know exactly what they are going to pick up. I know that's hard for you to use your brain but it's really simple to figure out

  • @tarrylrosier8443
    @tarrylrosier8443 3 ปีที่แล้ว +121

    I wonder how much money per minute was charged for those calls.

    • @LearnAboutFlow
      @LearnAboutFlow 3 ปีที่แล้ว +32

      Definitely a lot. These were true luxury/business features well into the 1980s

    • @marcse7en
      @marcse7en 3 ปีที่แล้ว +13

      Not as much as TODAY!

    • @rgolab3174
      @rgolab3174 3 ปีที่แล้ว +18

      They probably didn't have the technology to bill them 😁😁😁🤣🤣🤣

    • @boodro2122
      @boodro2122 3 ปีที่แล้ว +9

      Unreasonable amounts, I'm sure.

    • @scp3178
      @scp3178 3 ปีที่แล้ว +10

      pretty expensive. and the equipment looks ridiculously expensive.

  • @flyinbrianvoices
    @flyinbrianvoices 4 ปีที่แล้ว +378

    Everyone on these old films talked like guys from gangster movies.

    • @samsum3738
      @samsum3738 4 ปีที่แล้ว +18

      Like a scene from a film noir .

    • @marks6663
      @marks6663 4 ปีที่แล้ว +84

      Alright, see here, Joe. The dames had class back then, I tell ya. They had class and they had looks. But they weren't easy. A guy had to sell himself. Hard. And I mean real hard. And all the time. From morning til night. One slip up and the word would get around. Fast. This town has ears. He'd never get a date again. Wasn't good enough to be gangster just at the bar. You had to sound tough all the time. Everywhere. Even in your truck. A guy never knew when a dame was listening. And listening good.

    • @Mumblix
      @Mumblix 4 ปีที่แล้ว +43

      "The Boss wants us to pick up a 'special' at the Depot."

    • @robbchastain3036
      @robbchastain3036 4 ปีที่แล้ว +20

      lol, I kept getting the sense that a crime was about to be committed. It was like a lost episode of Dragnet. But O my, the wireless communications and those film graphics were incredible. Very crafty people were at work and I tip my hat to them.

    • @Kenny-bw2cz
      @Kenny-bw2cz 4 ปีที่แล้ว +25

      This was a special type of radio accent and voice which was created on purpose to be clear. People had to be trained to talk like this

  • @karenroy9045
    @karenroy9045 ปีที่แล้ว +9

    This was very fascinating and interesting. My husband worked for Verizon and he told me that during training he learned about cell phones in the 40’s. I guess he was right.

    • @fuzzywzhe
      @fuzzywzhe ปีที่แล้ว +2

      These weren't really cell phones, they were radio receivers / transmitters.
      Cell phones are so named, because there are small areas that are covered by a single tower. These are "cells", and they have some overlap. As you move from one cell to another, your phone silently switches to another tower on another set of frequencies. In this way, you can have a million people in a city using their cell phone at the same time - often using the same exact set of frequencies, but not in the same cell.
      These had basically a single transmitter and receiver and they used a TON of power, and only a few people could be using their radio phone at a time.
      These didn't take off, because they were no better than a walkie talkie.

  • @CookingWithCarmelo
    @CookingWithCarmelo 4 ปีที่แล้ว +20

    This is so awesome! When I was a kid in the mid '70's, I had an Admiral Police/Weather/Fire/"Car-Phone"/CB radio with no transmitter. It was simply a radio to listen in on public calls, and being a kid, it was so much fun to hear the calls that people dialed in their cars [by then, they dialed and you could hear the transmitter via FM radio to telephone and believe me, the calls were quick, because they were terribly expensive].

    • @Sashazur
      @Sashazur ปีที่แล้ว +3

      Even into the 90s it was possible to hear some cell phone calls. I could do it back then on my TV if I tuned it to the right unused channel. But I couldn’t hear full conversations because the calls would switch towers and frequencies as the phone traveled, and also I could only hear one side of a conversation.

    • @michaelbolton2741
      @michaelbolton2741 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      Indeed. Back then at least, there was an audio tone placed on the MTS channel to indicate it was clear. One could find such channels by listening for the tone. But, it'd be annoying to endure the 1000-Hz tone for very long. At least one electronics magazine published a construction project for a tone detector that would silence an external speaker when the tone was present, but switch it on when the channel was active. 🤓

    • @michaelbolton2741
      @michaelbolton2741 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@Sashazur In the analog days, when cellphones were bricks, bags, or mounted in the car. Then came the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986, and the subsequent switch to digital, encrypted cellphone service. Among other reasons, because someone disclosed the phone calls (already illegal under then-existing law) of a Senator. The rest, as they say, is history. 😒

    • @carlc5748
      @carlc5748 ปีที่แล้ว

      As you grew up, you had a fine career with the NSA, monitoring communications!

    • @RishayanPorMexico
      @RishayanPorMexico ปีที่แล้ว

      @@Sashazur That's right! UHF TV channels 80 to 83 were then using the same frequencies as the cell phone network. I, too, could hear cell phone conversations on my portable TV. It was complete incompetence by the FCC to assign such frequencies, when just a little higher up they could have assigned unused frequencies to the cell band( frequencies that are still basically unused even to this day).

  • @talltomtube
    @talltomtube 4 ปีที่แล้ว +39

    1:41 No swearing after the phone call? lol.

  • @Crapcelebs
    @Crapcelebs 3 ปีที่แล้ว +51

    2:24 "Leigh construction company, Martin speaking"..... "Hello George"

    • @onyx8231
      @onyx8231 3 ปีที่แล้ว +5

      😆 This killed me!

    • @acrocktube716
      @acrocktube716 3 ปีที่แล้ว +9

      Easily explained. His name was George Martin.

    • @stevegallant3395
      @stevegallant3395 3 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      I think he had too many MARTINi's

    • @earlwilliams73A77
      @earlwilliams73A77 3 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@stevegallant3395 Wilko @ delta 4 Silko on hawkeye @ 674.673 ° N 985.09° S
      Trayfox/ Foxytray 114' ~ 667`` 10 mils. Strait5 @ G N O SW 32..6 ° NE 154° Sea flux and Sunbox * 43 + 58 '' due East... Non Barco or Mapco. INSTIO.
      Set my watch on grid bearings; can't get lost.. That's why the Crow & the Swift are so special.
      Ok, back to sleep now..For the faithful few; meet you all in Paradise sometime soon...... Bye, not good- bye.

    • @יוסףאקמן
      @יוסףאקמן 3 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@stevegallant3395 5

  • @ichoppabroccoli3670
    @ichoppabroccoli3670 ปีที่แล้ว +16

    I had no idea these were around when I was a kid. Would have been a nice addition to the go-cart! I could have just called my mom to let her know I was still alive instead of ripping past the house once in awhile. This may freak out some of the kids reading this now but...we played outside ALL DAY! Our cell phones were sticks or whatever else we imagined was a phone.
    I remember one time asking my grandson if he wanted to go out and play and he looked at me like I said "Is it OK if I stab you?"🤣

  • @africanamerican1818
    @africanamerican1818 4 ปีที่แล้ว +14

    Saying no way, it'll never happen -- whilst watching on my modern cell phone -- fully enthralled

  • @WICKEDGIXXERL
    @WICKEDGIXXERL 4 ปีที่แล้ว +201

    My camera makes phone calls...

  • @lindyceeo9238
    @lindyceeo9238 4 ปีที่แล้ว +14

    I had no idea this started in the 1940’s. Interesting!

  • @MaureenTheTemp
    @MaureenTheTemp ปีที่แล้ว +6

    Many, many thanks to the "old timers" and hobbyists/historians for all their comments. It has honestly been as fascinating to read the comments as watch the video!

  • @DaveMalkoff
    @DaveMalkoff 4 ปีที่แล้ว +26

    I'm having my car door painted with one of these "Equipped with Mobile Radio Telephone Service" signs tomorrow.

    • @marcse7en
      @marcse7en 3 ปีที่แล้ว

      ADVERTISING really helps THIEVES! 👍😂

    • @robertpryor7225
      @robertpryor7225 3 ปีที่แล้ว

      That would be confusing and awesome

  • @goldreverre
    @goldreverre 4 ปีที่แล้ว +32

    Growing up in Melbourne (Aust), I recall my dad buying a late 50's Desoto as a second hand car and it had a phone in it. We never imagined such a thing could exist, but it certainly lit up my imagination. 25 or so years later I was an early buyer of a mobile "technophone" that cost me over $4000 and could allegedly fit in your pocket, as long as you didn't mind carrying a half kilo slab the weighed down one side of your pants.

    • @fidelcatsro6948
      @fidelcatsro6948 4 ปีที่แล้ว

      sounds like the Motorola MX350 Walkie talkie of the 90s

    • @hi-fistereo8987
      @hi-fistereo8987 4 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      Maybe I have the same thing--it's a "technophone" from Radio Shack. Might be a different model as I don't see how mine could fit in a pocket, unfortunately it doesn't work anymore.

  • @randomvintagefilm273
    @randomvintagefilm273 4 ปีที่แล้ว +59

    I'm so glad there are so many videos like this that survived. This is so interesting and educational. I never knew they had this capability then!

    • @kreuner11
      @kreuner11 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      If only they didn't plaster them with watermarks and timestamps

  • @MrTReinold
    @MrTReinold ปีที่แล้ว +1

    Very cool. I hope I live long enough to see it become reality in my lifetime!

  • @dlb4299
    @dlb4299 4 ปีที่แล้ว +18

    The "compact" units reminded me of the old aircraft radios. When I was in the USAF during the Vietnam era the radios in most of the military aircraft were about the size of one of today's full size tower PCs. They weighed about 30 pounds. On the larger aircraft, to change one, you would have to climb straight up a ladder for about 10 feet carrying a 30 pound radio with you.

    • @carlc5748
      @carlc5748 ปีที่แล้ว

      So you had the "Green Acres" TV show version!

  • @jefferyholland
    @jefferyholland 4 ปีที่แล้ว +115

    The compact equipment installed in the trunk is amazing. How can they put so much technology in such a small package?

    • @gingerelvira6587
      @gingerelvira6587 4 ปีที่แล้ว +9

      Through the miracel of Tube technology

    • @sbains560
      @sbains560 4 ปีที่แล้ว +11

      It wasn’t that small the entire trailer was taken up by the rest of the communication gear

    • @anotherkat4u
      @anotherkat4u 4 ปีที่แล้ว +6

      i think this is magic or witchcraft or sumthin ,,,,=^oo^=,,,,

    • @Anarchist86ed
      @Anarchist86ed 4 ปีที่แล้ว +10

      Beats me. But if uncle Sam can build an atomic bomb, anything's possible.

    • @lenscap8925
      @lenscap8925 4 ปีที่แล้ว +7

      The very next year the motor car companys responded with half acre sized trunks for increased range equipment...then, the "transistor" revolutionized trunk space LOL

  • @lordmikethegreat
    @lordmikethegreat 4 ปีที่แล้ว +41

    "He would use his regular business telephone to dial long distance" OMG! Not long distance! That used to cost you a mega fortune!

    • @someofus994
      @someofus994 4 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      simply cell phone

    • @frg9600
      @frg9600 4 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      Yup, and you had to wait until after 5 PM local time or call on the weekend to get the reduced rate for long distance! I remember those days.

    • @bazlebreeze9938
      @bazlebreeze9938 4 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      Still, my sister won't call more than a few miles away because it's long distance. In Ohio land lines are that way still.

    • @someofus994
      @someofus994 4 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@bazlebreeze9938 it is just cell phone

    • @k.r.baylor8825
      @k.r.baylor8825 4 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      And he is having to make a guess where his truck might be at a certain time, to use the right repeating station. Chances are that he'd be wrong more than right.

  • @bpd231martinko9
    @bpd231martinko9 ปีที่แล้ว +5

    In the mid seventies when I was still in high schooI I had one of those portable radios that you could tune in everything from short wave and emergency channels to the VHF frequency that these phones used. Some of the high priced Lawyers , in the Allentown Pa. area had these phones in their cars and I used to listen to them talking to each other about going to see their girlfriends before going home to their wives to have dinner. I rarely ever heard them talking about business during these conversations, it was all talk about their mistress's.

  • @BlenderRookie
    @BlenderRookie 4 ปีที่แล้ว +6

    What most people don't know is that back then, the radio signal had to transmit uphill in both directions in the snow with no shoes.

  • @georgesealy4706
    @georgesealy4706 3 ปีที่แล้ว +41

    You have it correct in the description, but not in the title. These were not 'cell phones.' There were also a very limited number of channels available in a metro area. When I worked at AT&T in NJ, I had the fun of being able to talk to the guys at Bell Labs who invented and developed cellular service. It was so interesting. They were so laid back about it, as though it was just routine engineering. They changed the world.

    • @stevesether
      @stevesether ปีที่แล้ว +4

      Possibly they were laid back about it because the US was behind the game when it came to cell phone service. There was some early work in deploying a cellular service in Chicago in 1978, but the first real nationwide cellular service was launched in Japan in 1979. It took the US until 1983 to launch what would become AMPS, the first 1G system in the US.

    • @gwgux
      @gwgux ปีที่แล้ว

      @@stevesether To be fair, Japan is a lot smaller than the US and distance is a big factor with cell phone service. The cell carriers still struggle with deploying more towers today with having to buy off local politicians who can get the approvals through against constant backlash from the "not in my backyard" locals who don't want to see the towers (but want cell service in their area).

    • @joeyager8479
      @joeyager8479 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      ​@@stevesether You're referring to the late 1970s 30 years after this film was made in the late 1940s. There were several other technical improvements over that time that allowed 2-way radio to become more dominate. Then satellite communication changed everything. Then AT&T made their decision to do everything possible to protect their extensive landline investment and basically ceded the mobile/cell phone business to others. The cell industry is doing the same thing trying to protect their current infrastructure investment from satellite phone service that many other countries are moving towards.

    • @stevesether
      @stevesether ปีที่แล้ว

      @@joeyager8479 Yes, I understand the ideas of why it took a while to get real cell phone service. Primarily it's because we needed integrated circuits to handle the intelligence of handling the cell handoff and management of which cell to connect to. Radios and some simple circuits are just too dumb for that.
      I'm not sure your analogy of satellites replacing cell phones to cell phones replacing land lines is entirely accurate.
      There's just some basic physics and communication theory that tells us that transmitting to something 1 mile away (or much shorter for 5g, more like hundreds of feet) is going to take less power and give you more bandwidth than transmitting to something at least 60 miles away.

    • @joeyager8479
      @joeyager8479 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@stevesether I'm no expert in the physics of communication, but I have read that poorer countries have found it to be less expensive to contract to have communications satellites built and launched and use satellite phones than to invest and maintain a cellular telephone system or conventional landlines.
      My point is that large corporations that have invested millions of dollars in infrastructure will do everything in their power to retain their monopoly to protect their investment. In the end, it doesn't prevent the new technology from developing and taking over - it just delays it for a while. It happens to all legacy industries. It's currently happening worldwide in the auto industry regarding BEVs. For all their current talk, it's the new startups that are outselling the legacy manufacturers in BEVs. It was a Kodak moment long before Kodak became the butt of their own advertising promotion.

  • @james5460
    @james5460 4 ปีที่แล้ว +239

    Those guys had no idea how lucky they were being able to "go on the road" and NOT receive phone calls from their boss - or nagging wife.

    • @geenal360
      @geenal360 4 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      James haha

    • @james5460
      @james5460 4 ปีที่แล้ว +15

      @Michigan Wolverine in Dallas When they know you have it, they also know you're not answering them.

    • @pickeldbeats
      @pickeldbeats 4 ปีที่แล้ว +6

      nagging wife? MGTOW!

    • @MACTEP_CHOB
      @MACTEP_CHOB 4 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      What's a wife?

    • @pickeldbeats
      @pickeldbeats 4 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      石尸丹丁丹廾彐丁囗 中仈丹仁片囗 today a wife is a much the same as a boat anchor

  • @alfredneuman7665
    @alfredneuman7665 ปีที่แล้ว +3

    I remember the teletype station in the state hospital where my father worked in the fifties, seeing the output with no one pressing the keys was amazing to me as a child.

  • @Rev22-21
    @Rev22-21 4 ปีที่แล้ว +15

    That battery ....wow! 6 volt and 200 amps later!

  • @daledorsett9791
    @daledorsett9791 4 ปีที่แล้ว +67

    Don't forget about Dick Tracy comics where detective Dick Tracy had a cell phone essentially on his wrist vs a watch. He saw the other person and visa versa. Good imagination from the 1940's.

    • @matekochkoch
      @matekochkoch 3 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      Or that 60th tv series "Get Smart" with all that secret telephones build in absolute every random item.

    • @lamontcranston4102
      @lamontcranston4102 3 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      I liked Agent 86's (Don Adams) Shoe Phone better in "Get Smart". Now that was futuristic!

    • @DoubleOhEA
      @DoubleOhEA 3 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      "Hold everything!"

  • @jerryg50
    @jerryg50 4 ปีที่แล้ว +5

    In the late 60's we had a mobile phone in our car. It had a lot of electronics in the trunk of the car. It was a two way radio working with repeaters. It had 6 channels. When lifting and pressing the talk button the mobile operator would answer. I would give my account number and the number I want to connect to. She would connect the call. This phone system worked with a repeater system.

  • @some1stoleit
    @some1stoleit ปีที่แล้ว +3

    Only place I could find an explanation of how these car phones work, interesting tech. Going straight to the primary source for information, not bad.

  • @cgustafson240
    @cgustafson240 4 ปีที่แล้ว +20

    Having built cellular sites most of my adult life. It was interesting to take a look back at the industry in its infancy. How cell phones have changed in just the last 25 years. The phones in this video make the old bag phones and Motorola "brick" look modern. My generation was probably the last generation to grow up without a phone in their pocket.

    • @foobarmaximus3506
      @foobarmaximus3506 2 ปีที่แล้ว

      You only need a phone if you have something to say. So it worked out well for you.

  • @panchovilla4005
    @panchovilla4005 4 ปีที่แล้ว +265

    We went from that to touchscreen phones and now we fight over toilet paper at the stores🤣 no wonder aliens dont wanna make contact.

    • @henrytimbrook4687
      @henrytimbrook4687 4 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      The Vulcans will in 42 years!!!!

    • @somebody9825
      @somebody9825 4 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      No, the aliens are locked up in area 51 which is why we can't make contact.

    • @deserteddave1596
      @deserteddave1596 3 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      @@somebody9825 Dead spot. No cell service.

    • @Kgio-2112
      @Kgio-2112 3 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      Oh... We have aliens here. Rocko is one of them

    • @snoglydox
      @snoglydox 3 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      I had a car phone in the middle eighties; it was cheaper than a regular phone, because my roommate had overdue long distance bills, so I had to give a thousand dollar down payment to get the twisted pair service. It felt real cool to have such a thing back then.

  • @waynelast1685
    @waynelast1685 4 ปีที่แล้ว +27

    I hope the costs come down so everyone can have these.

  • @darrenberkey7017
    @darrenberkey7017 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    Wow, I just has flashbacks to the days of being a kid in the 70's and having a rotary telephone with a metal dial.

  • @GregsWorkshopOregon
    @GregsWorkshopOregon 4 ปีที่แล้ว +70

    “Here a transmitter unit and a receiver unit are being compactly and neatly installed.” Hahaha, ‘compactly’

    • @morganrussman
      @morganrussman 4 ปีที่แล้ว +5

      Yeah, I know. Those units are barely compact. But, considering the time frame though, that might have been considered compact.

    • @BrilliantDesignOnline
      @BrilliantDesignOnline 4 ปีที่แล้ว +8

      And don't forget, you MAY need a larger generator and Battery...Just like modern mobile phones.

  • @hippiechickite
    @hippiechickite 4 ปีที่แล้ว +328

    I wish people still talked like this- slow and calm - today everyone’s so wacked out on drugs -no one communicates like humans -

    • @ariannapac6535
      @ariannapac6535 4 ปีที่แล้ว +12

      Truth.

    • @Williamjclopez82
      @Williamjclopez82 4 ปีที่แล้ว +7

      Yes, this is true.

    • @wildfire7579
      @wildfire7579 4 ปีที่แล้ว +26

      Hanging out with alot of druggies do ya? Maybe it's time to reconsider the company you keep. 😆

    • @attlee2010
      @attlee2010 4 ปีที่แล้ว +11

      No it’s painfully slow! It makes me sleepy

    • @MeatyController
      @MeatyController 4 ปีที่แล้ว +19

      Leave my drugs out of this!!

  • @npcDroneClass
    @npcDroneClass 4 ปีที่แล้ว +53

    back when two people were in trucks... one could answer the phone while the other was driving. get your shit together people, we need this today.

    • @NotSoCrazyNinja
      @NotSoCrazyNinja 4 ปีที่แล้ว +5

      Too costly! Truckers are going to be replaced by self-driving rigs as soon as the technology is mature enough because it will save the company money and increase profits. You can make a self-driving truck work 24/7/365 only stopping for fuel and repairs and you don't have to pay them. You can only make a trucker work ten hours (if I remember right) and have to pay them too. If you do teams (two drivers), you still have four hours of downtime per 24 and the cost is more than a single driver. If the wheels aren't rolling, the company isn't making money, and due to competition, they have to pay as little as they can get away with to keep making big profits. The first companies to use self-driving trucks stand to make huge profits since there will be no driver to pay and no downtime except for refueling and repairs. The big problem with self-driving rigs is, how are they going to refuel? There are no full-service diesel pumps that I'm aware of.

    • @dosmundos3830
      @dosmundos3830 4 ปีที่แล้ว +5

      @Mark Reaves with thinking like that we'd never progress. Technology is to used to ease mans burden, not replace him. In the capitalist west people lose jobs and suffer because of technology whilst in the socialist East people's jobs get easier with the same pay. It all comes down to human greed.

    • @smhedge
      @smhedge 4 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      @@NotSoCrazyNinja I'm pretty sure that the big name truck stops will be happy to add full service if they can charge a big enough premium for the service to be profitable.

    • @AndreLuiz-ip3fh
      @AndreLuiz-ip3fh 4 ปีที่แล้ว

      Soon, no people will be needed. Auto pilot will be common place.

    • @garcjr
      @garcjr 4 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@NotSoCrazyNinja You still need a CDL to manage a driverless truck.

  • @rmoore1686
    @rmoore1686 ปีที่แล้ว

    I worked as a telephone operator and we received and made mobile phone calls. This video reminded me of that time. Nice memories.

  • @arajoaina
    @arajoaina 3 ปีที่แล้ว +40

    They wouldn’t believe their grand kids will all have a mobile phone, camera, computer, music player, video, GPS, news , game player, bank service, shopping, and much more rolled into one handheld device!

    • @foobarmaximus3506
      @foobarmaximus3506 2 ปีที่แล้ว

      Big deal. All it did was turn them into brain-dead monkeys.

    • @AggiePhil
      @AggiePhil ปีที่แล้ว +5

      Or on their wrists.

    • @TombstoneChris
      @TombstoneChris ปีที่แล้ว

      @@AggiePhil are implanted into their brains which is actually happening

    • @BlazeMaster
      @BlazeMaster ปีที่แล้ว

      And they carry all of that in their pocket or a hand bag

    • @rolandmeyer3729
      @rolandmeyer3729 ปีที่แล้ว

      Thank God for quantum mechanical technology.

  • @Rev22-21
    @Rev22-21 4 ปีที่แล้ว +34

    Anyone remember the 1963-64 commercial about television phones in every home?

    • @stevie68a
      @stevie68a 4 ปีที่แล้ว +5

      At the NY Worlds Fair of '64/'65, they promised "Picturephone".
      It was a desk top receiver with handset.
      It took forty years later to have it happen.

  • @davidpanton3192
    @davidpanton3192 4 ปีที่แล้ว +86

    Those guys at the beginning are being outacted by the trees.

    • @ralphturner3798
      @ralphturner3798 4 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      I like your sense of humour.

    • @samsum3738
      @samsum3738 4 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      The comments here are priceless .I tell yuh , i am crying here .

    • @slowerthansound
      @slowerthansound 4 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      I'm amazed that there was a time when you could have two drivers in the truck!

    • @scottparis6355
      @scottparis6355 4 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      @@slowerthansound Two drivers in uniforms! With hats.

    • @buddyclem7328
      @buddyclem7328 4 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@slowerthansound That cab was so small that their shoulders touched, in a semi truck!

  • @RioSul50
    @RioSul50 10 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

    I bought a "cell" phone for my HVAC business back in the late 1980's. It was heavy and BIG but worked OK. It was NOT cheap. I even bought a spare battery (12 volt marine lead acid) so I could use the phone in a hotel room). I also had a pager that I received messages on several times per day (often) and since it was small it was much more useful. Back then there were not many cell towers.

  • @jeopardy60611
    @jeopardy60611 3 ปีที่แล้ว +15

    This is so interesting. Apparently, the mobile phone didn't have automatic dialing, and the calls were received by long distance which had to be handled by an operator. Also, you probably had to know what city the truck was in so that you would get the operator local to it. It's so cool that in this day and age, you can reach a cell phone by dialing the local number and it "fast tracks" anywhere in the country if the phone is out-of-state.

    • @kreuner11
      @kreuner11 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      Modern phones register themselves with the nearest tower, and it goes to a central system of their operator, that way when a call is made it will always be able to locate it. As a side effect, this also provides pretty accurate location data

    • @jeopardy60611
      @jeopardy60611 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@kreuner11 it’s just interesting to learn how mobile phone calling worked before everything was networked like it is today.

    • @teebob21
      @teebob21 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      @@jeopardy60611 Not just mobile phones....that's how ALL plain old telephone service worked back then, before the invention of direct dialing and interconnected circuit-switched automatic exchanges. When you wanted to place a call (even a local one) an operator would patch you through (using a patch cord, natch) to the connection port of your call target.

    • @jeopardy60611
      @jeopardy60611 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@teebob21 Yeah, I know that at one time, all calls were operator-assisted, even on landline phones.

  • @g2macs
    @g2macs 4 ปีที่แล้ว +83

    We use this in Scotland it took over from two bean tins attached with string last year.

    • @Gribbo9999
      @Gribbo9999 4 ปีที่แล้ว +7

      Bean tins? Bean Tins? You were lucky! Here in out back Aussie we still use camel caravans to pass messages. It's quicker than the national broadband network.

    • @donf3877
      @donf3877 4 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      @Gribbo9999 You did it. You had to go and did it. Now the animal rights group will be on your a$$ for misuse of animals. Forcing them into groups when they don't want to and loading them up with things they don't want and force marching them out in that hot sand when they don't want to. Oh hell... here they come now............

    • @g2macs
      @g2macs 4 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      Gribbo9999 Camels! Camels!........We'd love to 'ave Camels......our bean tins had rusty ragged ends that used to rip off your earlobe and don't get me started on how many cyclists we lost with our sharp string!

    • @rsrt6910
      @rsrt6910 4 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      Have they adopted the English "pound" for currency there, or are they still using the more traditional "knuckle sandwich"?

    • @tompurcell1499
      @tompurcell1499 4 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      I used to use spaghetti bolognaise tins, but I've since upgraded to ravioli.

  • @angrykermit3192
    @angrykermit3192 4 ปีที่แล้ว +82

    Now everyone has a mobile phone that does everything amazingly well... except make phone calls.

    • @michaeleasterwood6558
      @michaeleasterwood6558 3 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      My Samsung does a great job on phone calls

    • @dianainclan2021
      @dianainclan2021 3 ปีที่แล้ว

      You’re so right

    • @thirdstar9255
      @thirdstar9255 3 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      "phones" today are garbage that barely function, and cause gayness.

    • @TPath3
      @TPath3 3 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      The sound is horrible compared to the old analog cable phones - I cannot stand it !

    • @dianainclan2021
      @dianainclan2021 3 ปีที่แล้ว

      Lol so true 😂👍

  • @dilippadalkar822
    @dilippadalkar822 ปีที่แล้ว

    I am very much delighted to watch this video and technology in those days.

  • @michaelcraig9449
    @michaelcraig9449 4 ปีที่แล้ว +5

    This is awesome, keep posting up way more history stuff!!

  • @wildcatkelly1966
    @wildcatkelly1966 3 ปีที่แล้ว +63

    Gotta love technology, even 1940s tech. This is really cool to watch these old films and see how advanced we were after WWII and how similar the technology of that day is fairly similar to what we have today, eight decades later. Thanks for the upload.

  • @parexc07
    @parexc07 5 ปีที่แล้ว +45

    1970's_My Motorola was behind the seat, 50 watts of power to one tower. 7 year waiting list, "MA-BELL" $50 a month/50cents a min, think I paid $3500 bucks back then, that would be like $10k now

    • @carlosedwardos
      @carlosedwardos 4 ปีที่แล้ว

      $3500 in the 70's was a helluva lot more than $10K now! - more like $17K or that ballpalk

    • @54superwasp38
      @54superwasp38 4 ปีที่แล้ว

      Good ol 50/50..$50mo 50¢ a min. Boy how I don't miss those days.

  • @Brad-nh8bb
    @Brad-nh8bb 9 หลายเดือนก่อน

    I was a late entry to the Bell System and used IMTS in a Bell System Van (Pacific Tel. & Tel.) on the San Fracisco Peninsula (Coast) until 1983. Even at that late stage, there were days I couldn't get an open channel, and dialing was iffy at best; I always used the mobile operator to complete calls.
    I did some research in preparation for my thesis prior to my promotion into management a few years later about Cellular Service, past-present-future in 1987. Within that research, I learned that Bell Labs was experimenting with live analog cellular service in Chicago as early as 1926. They shelved the idea, and patents in favor of IMTS as a more marketable product in the near term since the cellular mobile equipment using tube technology would fill a typical automobile. The tests were conducted using box trucks with the equipment in the back.

  • @mindright9771
    @mindright9771 4 ปีที่แล้ว +25

    I guess you don't have to worry about robocalls with this system.

  • @Rocketman88002
    @Rocketman88002 4 ปีที่แล้ว +6

    @Sar Jim, interesting comment and thank you for the great explanations. I got in on the very tail end of those days as an FM mobile radio technician. I installed, operated, maintained, serviced and repaired about 300 mobile radios, about 7 mountain top repeaters covering 3 states and numerous base stations in the VHF and UHF frequencies. We operated at 30, 34 & 38 mHz in the VHF band with one point to point and repeater channel. The extended range of a repeater operating at 10000 ft H.A.T. provided coverage for close to a 300 mile radius. The mobiles ran the max legal limit of 100 Watts. Point to point for ranges inside a 100 miles and the repeater for longer. We also operated at 171 and 412 mHz. The 171 mHz mobiles ran about 80 Watts into the antenna and the 412 mHz about half that. Pure radio commo eliminated the need for a PBX, channel modems, multiplexers and an extra transmitter and receiver. In my day, there were still many radio telephone services around and Ma Bell used them well into the 60's or 70's. The old VHF and UHF mobiles were powered by the vehicle battery and dynamotors for the all tube tranceivers. I believe the alternators were 120 amp buffered by a large capacity vehicle battery which supplied DC to the dynamotor which supplied filament and B+ voltages to the tubes.

    • @foobarmaximus3506
      @foobarmaximus3506 2 ปีที่แล้ว

      Big deal. My dad was a TV repairman in the 1950s. So what?

    • @gextreme2381
      @gextreme2381 ปีที่แล้ว

      Very cool! Not you foobar, ura dik.

    • @lelandgaunt9985
      @lelandgaunt9985 ปีที่แล้ว

      “@“ doesn’t work that way.

    • @zachlafond2652
      @zachlafond2652 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@foobarmaximus3506 my dad looked like fat Elvis.

    • @dannydaw59
      @dannydaw59 ปีที่แล้ว

      Were fm radio stations running at that time? That spectrum of radio waves must've been crowded if both systems were in use.

  • @mrreymundo5383
    @mrreymundo5383 4 ปีที่แล้ว +42

    I need to have "Equipped with mobile radio telephone service" painted on the door of my car... Bet that would impress somebody!

    • @HT-ww3zg
      @HT-ww3zg 4 ปีที่แล้ว +8

      Chicks dig guys with mobile radio telephone service!

    • @mrreymundo5383
      @mrreymundo5383 4 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      @@HT-ww3zg Ya gotta have something that makes you stand out in this world!

    • @hi-fistereo8987
      @hi-fistereo8987 4 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      it would impress me

    • @Perktube1
      @Perktube1 4 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      Yeah, but then the girl's pop could call you and say get my daughter home in ten minutes or you'll get what for.

    • @kirkcardoso6137
      @kirkcardoso6137 4 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      My CB antenna makes people think im law enforcement🤣🤣 and i love it.

  • @Rocketman88002
    @Rocketman88002 ปีที่แล้ว +5

    This method of commo was also used in the Amateur Radio Service using what was called phone patch. That capability came in handy on those long lonely stretches of highway in New Mexico, Texas and Arizona. The mountain top repeaters could be hit from the desert floor with a few Watts power putting you in contact by land line with emergency or roadside services.

  • @bryceduncan2074
    @bryceduncan2074 4 ปีที่แล้ว +64

    2:25 Man 1: "Lee Construction company, Martin speaking."
    Man 2: "Hello George".

    • @jouleskelvin
      @jouleskelvin 4 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      🤣

    • @rancher12121
      @rancher12121 4 ปีที่แล้ว +16

      that's George Martin, fifth Beatle on the right

    • @samsum3738
      @samsum3738 4 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      @@rancher12121 Before he got his big break .

    • @herrmangel7202
      @herrmangel7202 4 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      "Yeah what's the matter whit it"

    • @buddyclem7328
      @buddyclem7328 4 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      😆

  • @robertphillips6296
    @robertphillips6296 4 ปีที่แล้ว +39

    I believe that it was also called “Radio Telephone.”

    • @Bibibosh
      @Bibibosh 4 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      Robert Phillips radio just means wavelengths.
      Light sound and even matter, yes, physical objects are just constraints of physical phenomena of energy.

  • @bcgrittner
    @bcgrittner 4 ปีที่แล้ว +11

    In the 1968 movie "Hellfighters" , Chance Buckman (John Wayne's character) had old style mobile phones everywhere he went. They were not in his pockets. Ah, progress.

    • @youtubestolemyhandle1
      @youtubestolemyhandle1 4 ปีที่แล้ว

      bcgrittner
      Andy Taylor (Griffith) had one in his squad car.

    • @samallan6616
      @samallan6616 4 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      @@youtubestolemyhandle1 No, he had a low-band Motorola HF transceiver in his car. But the long whip that was hardly ever whipping around. It could call the state police.

  • @Wilett614
    @Wilett614 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    My Father worked for Bell System From the 1920s to 1960s I remember once when he was a construction supervisor with his own company car , about 1956 or so . He came home one day with his Company car and Said " Look Son , I now have a "telephone" in my car .
    can you believe it ? ! THEN he told me , ONE day in your lifetime, ordinary people will "CARRY" personal telephones on them , anywhere, and make calls to anyone they wish , anytime they wish . I predict .
    Sadly my dad Never saw 'Cell Phones " but his prediction certainly came true .
    I wonder where our technology will be in my sons Lifetime ? Thanks Dad , I NEVER forgot that day, and what you told me way back in 1956 !

  • @Rick-se5qm
    @Rick-se5qm 4 ปีที่แล้ว +21

    Yes and if the frequency assigned to the service was busy they had to wait until that call was finished. I was in the business when IMTS existed, in the 70s. With that you could dial a number from the mobile, listen to other conversations sharing the channel but the call to you was routed through a mobile phone operator. Air time was charged by the min. about $3.50 in 2020 dollars. The mobile unit was about $5K in 2020 dollars.

    • @dlb4299
      @dlb4299 4 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      About the cost of Iphone 11

    • @frg9600
      @frg9600 4 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      In the days when mobile phones were on either the VHF low or VHF high bands, anyone who had a radio scanner or a tunable VHF receiver could listen in on your conversations as well. Even most cell phones were analog until about 10-15 years ago. There was no way to stop people from eavesdropping on mobile telephone calls until the cellular companies switched their networks to digital modulation.

    • @robertborchert932
      @robertborchert932 2 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      Indeed, I used a VHF radio telephone back in the day, it had a series of frequencies available for a call, you would speak to the mobile operator. Years later, I had a mobile telephone, it was analog, and had a 5 watt transmitter. This was the first generation of "cellular" telephones. Little briefcase rig. Back then, airtime was about $1.60 a minute, in the 1980s. Yep, the old days. Think about this, one month, I had a thousand dollar bill, hehe. In 80's dollars.
      Most folks don't realize, but the later Motorola unit I had, yes, the famous StarTAC, was digital. If I recall, 24 people could tank simultaneously on one frequency, as it used packets of digital data. This innovation is the reason why cellular literally exploded, as one repeater could handle many times more calls.
      Today, we take mobile telephony for granted.

  • @carolannfbreezy8503
    @carolannfbreezy8503 4 ปีที่แล้ว +54

    Bet the cost of using this stuff then was INCREDIBLY expensive.

    • @TorreFernand
      @TorreFernand 4 ปีที่แล้ว +7

      A long distance call to London was $75 and it only got you 3 minutes, so yes

    • @joogledlay1225
      @joogledlay1225 4 ปีที่แล้ว

      Fernando Torre Now convert that $75 to today’s money. Well, Unless you already adjusted that for inflation.

    • @ryanb418
      @ryanb418 4 ปีที่แล้ว +8

      $75 in 1940 → $1,381.99 in 2020 That's an expensive phone call.

    • @im1who84u
      @im1who84u 4 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      @@ryanb418 Back then, you could purchase a brand new car for that much and still have money left over.

    • @rickdaystar477
      @rickdaystar477 4 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      When I had a Motorola " brick phone" in the early 80's cellphone calls were .25 cents a minute
      Besides the monthly fee of $40.00

  • @dschaub9535
    @dschaub9535 4 ปีที่แล้ว +5

    Can you imagine if they could combine a telephone, a typewriter, a TV, a camera and a video game council.
    That would be technology from out of this world.

    • @Kelle0284
      @Kelle0284 4 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      Also a clock, a thermometer, a map, etc.

    • @tomcarpenter700
      @tomcarpenter700 2 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@Kelle0284 Dictionaries, Encyclopedias, History book, Math, Book,, Social studies book, Spelling book, Stopwatch, Calculator, Camcorder,, Picture album,, Good book, Cook book,, Movie theater,, Just to name A few,,,

  • @calanon534
    @calanon534 ปีที่แล้ว

    I remember the Superman TV show, the editor, Mr. White, had a car phone like this. Watching it in the 1990's, when my stepdad also had a (much more modern) car phone, was a fascination.

  • @edp2260
    @edp2260 4 ปีที่แล้ว +6

    IT took 50 years before cell phones became common. Shortly after that, talking on a phone became unpopular, and "text" communication became the norm.

    • @geenal360
      @geenal360 4 ปีที่แล้ว

      ed p that way no one could hear the nasty sex talk-

  • @jmurphy1973
    @jmurphy1973 4 ปีที่แล้ว +4

    I started working for a communication tower manufacturer in 1996 and the feeling then was that we'd have enough towers within 5 years or so. When I left the company in 2008, we couldn't build them fast enough and were shipping about 2000 per year.

  • @alonzocalvillo6702
    @alonzocalvillo6702 4 ปีที่แล้ว +12

    When are these going on sale? I can hardly wait to get my mitts on one. I”ll be the first on my block and the envy of everybody!

  • @josefmazzeo6628
    @josefmazzeo6628 ปีที่แล้ว

    Amazing that this was done in the vacuum tube age! I was not aware that "cell" phone service even existed back then. I remember the first mobile phones were truly "mobile" with in vehicle installation only. Even with solid state integrated circuit technology, phones up until the late 80s/early 90s were as large as two bricks and looked more like a HAM radio transceiver than a phone. They were expensive so if you had one you were either rich, a hot shot executive or a drug dealer. Service was expensive so you had a limited number of included minutes to talk per month - if you went over it would be like a $1 a minute. Today we are truly spoiled with unlimited talk/text and even data (with an asterisk).

  • @andyr8812
    @andyr8812 4 ปีที่แล้ว +4

    Thanks to the engineers from the past for the technology we have today.

    • @RickaramaTrama-lc1ys
      @RickaramaTrama-lc1ys 4 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      Bell Labs started it all with the invention of The Transistor~!!

    • @patrickperry6945
      @patrickperry6945 4 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      Yeah. You smartass millennials can thank the baby boomer generation for all of the electronic crap that you now take for granted.

  • @geigertec5921
    @geigertec5921 4 ปีที่แล้ว +27

    1940's cell phones, who would have tought.

    • @scotpens
      @scotpens 4 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      Mobile, but not cellular. The cellular breakthrough was in having numerous small transmitter/receivers instead of a few big ones. A mobile call can be handed off from one "cell" (the area covered by a transceiver) to the next with no interruption of service.

    • @geigertec5921
      @geigertec5921 4 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@GladeSwope The ham radio was only slighty more popular than the bologna radio at that time.

    • @geigertec5921
      @geigertec5921 4 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@GladeSwope I'm afraid not, no disrespect but I was born in the 21st century.

    • @one4allall4one91
      @one4allall4one91 4 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@geigertec5921 you got a point. Even today ham radios are used when a storm takes out the cell towers. Ham radios have been around way before the 1940s.

  • @sha8342
    @sha8342 3 ปีที่แล้ว +55

    This is incredibly intersting. I'm 60yrs old and had never heard of the earliest mobile phone services that were actually used. I only remember the CB craze and the old huge mobile phone's connected too huge batteries. Too think the earliest version of mobile phone calling was in the early 40's. 🤔 Wow cool. CB Radios were pretty cool back in the day. My dad's handle was, Silver Fox. 😊

    • @Gail1Marie
      @Gail1Marie 2 ปีที่แล้ว +6

      You sometimes see the mobile phones of the era on old Perry Mason shows. Private detective Paul Drake had one that apparently took up half his trunk.

    • @carlc5748
      @carlc5748 ปีที่แล้ว

      So your dad was Charlie Rich? (Silver Fox). He could have been the inspiration for the very first discotheque in the USA, which opened in 1975, in Reseda, Calif, called the Silver Fox. My cousin did the logo for that, and he told me that it was the first disco to open in the USA, two years before Club 54 in NYC.

    • @scud1962
      @scud1962 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      I only remember it from early 70’s Mannix shows but it seems that he only had calls from Kitty.

    • @krisyung
      @krisyung ปีที่แล้ว

      How is your Dad these days

    • @b.m.r221
      @b.m.r221 9 หลายเดือนก่อน

      Car phones pre dated these my 65 year old mother taught me this when I was a little kid in the 90’s

  • @tonydabaloney
    @tonydabaloney ปีที่แล้ว

    My ex had one in her caddy back in the late 60s. It rarely worked right, but was a technological miracle for the time.

  • @waltdill927
    @waltdill927 4 ปีที่แล้ว +29

    Gee Whiz, Ma: two truck drivers in one truck, and making living wages! What a wonderful future is a-comin'....

    • @waltdill927
      @waltdill927 4 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@YAHUSHUAISLORD468 ,,,thanX for sharing. ...I've discovered that proper medication DOES HELP. Good Luck, and say "whazzup" to JC.

    • @therealnynetynyne360
      @therealnynetynyne360 3 ปีที่แล้ว

      Gee whiz ma 20 somethings not being entitled lazy wastes of air fighting for gold in the oppression Olympics?

  • @or1750
    @or1750 4 ปีที่แล้ว +24

    I was waiting for the announcer to say, " Calling Dr. Howard, Dr. Fine, Dr. Howard!" Interesting innovation to think Tesla thought of this years prior. It so the rumor says.

    • @daphne4983
      @daphne4983 4 ปีที่แล้ว

      In 1908 a guy already proposed mobile phones.

    • @therealnynetynyne360
      @therealnynetynyne360 3 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      This is adapted ww2 military tech, was actually pretty compact for its day