ShariD76
Motorola Bag Phone
Back in the mid to late 1980'þ I worked at the Indianapolis main office location for Cellular One Mobile Telephones, as the Front Desk Receptionist, Switchboard Operator; Mail Clerk; Package Delivery director; walk-in customer director; In-House Sales Calls Distributor; Special Project Typist for the Sales Department; and anything else they could come up with at the time! So I guess you could say I wore a LOT of "hats" at that job!
At the time, all cellular or mobile phones were hardwired into your vehicle, with the phone handpiece/receiver set on an adjustable pedestal which was screwed down through the floor of the transmission "hump" between the two front seats of rear-wheel-drive cars. If your car was front-wheel-drive, and had no "hump," which most at the time did not, then they just screwed down a taller pedestal made for that purpose.
The receiver had a curly, stretchy cord, just like your home phone at the time had. All the wiring inside the car was carefully installed from front to back under the carpeting and tucked up under trim pieces inside the car.
The very large, heavy battery pack (nicknamed "the boat anchor!") was installed in the trunk of the car, or, failing that, as far back behind the passenger compartment as possible, and still be completely protected from weather and possible theft or vandalism. Meaning, in things like pickups, they had to be inside the cab, but up under the seat, or behind the second seat in Crew Cab or Club Cab models.
The last individual piece was the antenna, which had an unusual looking installation technique that seemed to pass right through whatever glass window you chose to have it installed! There were two pieces of the mounting bracket - one which was stuck with a powerful pre-applied (peel-and-stick) adhesive to the outside of the chosen glass window, that held the actual removable antenna mast, and a mated black plastic base that carried the end of the antenna wiring up to the outer base, where the signals would pass through the glass.
Calls were placed and received by dialing out on the buttons on the back side of the handset as it faced the user, or answering by hitting the "ANS" button on thr keypad, then the earpiece and microphone were inside the handset just like a regular telephone. Calls placed outside your own home area were called Roaming, which generated extra charges, sort of like landline long distance! If you were inclined to take frequent trips out of town to places where you would place numerous calls, your next month's bill could be a monster! 😲
A "hands free" option was available, by installing a separate tiny microphone that reached up to and clipped onto the underside of the visor on the drivers side, with a small remote speaker unit under the dash. As an employee, I managed to get myself this whole setup in a recently traded-in, top of the current line "Novatel" brand unit for about 1/3 the price of a new one. The whole cost, including the installation, in my pretty blue 1984 Ford Escort station wagon with the fake wood panels down the side! It was the ultimate "Mom Mobile" - pre-minivan and SUV days!
The "Bag Phone" shown above, by Motorola, was the next big step up the ladder towards carry around convenience. All it really did was take the components of the hardwired installed "carphone" and put them in a very sturdy leather, or "faux leather" bag with a wide shoulderstrap, making it the first truly "Mobile phone" on the market. The cost was high enough that usually only doctors. contractors, lawyers, and the like found them easily affordable, and most could write the expense off of their taxes each year. There were certain features which had to be altered, such as the charging setup, since it was no longer wired into the automobile or truck systems to keep the battery charged, it needed to be done by hooking it up to the residential power the same way we do now.
Also the antenna required adjustments, since it was no longer running through the wiring setup inside and outside the glass windows. The biggest problem to get solved were increased calling areas, and the only way to fix the areas where calls could be made was to increase the number and placement of the antennas on the towers on the ground, and on tall _t and other structures. Once this was done, the network increased exponentialy.
Motorola Bag Phone
Back in the mid to late 1980'þ I worked at the Indianapolis main office location for Cellular One Mobile Telephones, as the Front Desk Receptionist, Switchboard Operator; Mail Clerk; Package Delivery director; walk-in customer director; In-House Sales Calls Distributor; Special Project Typist for the Sales Department; and anything else they could come up with at the time! So I guess you could say I wore a LOT of "hats" at that job!
At the time, all cellular or mobile phones were hardwired into your vehicle, with the phone handpiece/receiver set on an adjustable pedestal which was screwed down through the floor of the transmission "hump" between the two front seats of rear-wheel-drive cars. If your car was front-wheel-drive, and had no "hump," which most at the time did not, then they just screwed down a taller pedestal made for that purpose.
The receiver had a curly, stretchy cord, just like your home phone at the time had. All the wiring inside the car was carefully installed from front to back under the carpeting and tucked up under trim pieces inside the car.
The very large, heavy battery pack (nicknamed "the boat anchor!") was installed in the trunk of the car, or, failing that, as far back behind the passenger compartment as possible, and still be completely protected from weather and possible theft or vandalism. Meaning, in things like pickups, they had to be inside the cab, but up under the seat, or behind the second seat in Crew Cab or Club Cab models.
The last individual piece was the antenna, which had an unusual looking installation technique that seemed to pass right through whatever glass window you chose to have it installed! There were two pieces of the mounting bracket - one which was stuck with a powerful pre-applied (peel-and-stick) adhesive to the outside of the chosen glass window, that held the actual removable antenna mast, and a mated black plastic base that carried the end of the antenna wiring up to the outer base, where the signals would pass through the glass.
Calls were placed and received by dialing out on the buttons on the back side of the handset as it faced the user, or answering by hitting the "ANS" button on thr keypad, then the earpiece and microphone were inside the handset just like a regular telephone. Calls placed outside your own home area were called Roaming, which generated extra charges, sort of like landline long distance! If you were inclined to take frequent trips out of town to places where you would place numerous calls, your next month's bill could be a monster! 😲
A "hands free" option was available, by installing a separate tiny microphone that reached up to and clipped onto the underside of the visor on the drivers side, with a small remote speaker unit under the dash. As an employee, I managed to get myself this whole setup in a recently traded-in, top of the current line "Novatel" brand unit for about 1/3 the price of a new one. The whole cost, including the installation, in my pretty blue 1984 Ford Escort station wagon with the fake wood panels down the side! It was the ultimate "Mom Mobile" - pre-minivan and SUV days!
The "Bag Phone" shown above, by Motorola, was the next big step up the ladder towards carry around convenience. All it really did was take the components of the hardwired installed "carphone" and put them in a very sturdy leather, or "faux leather" bag with a wide shoulderstrap, making it the first truly "Mobile phone" on the market. The cost was high enough that usually only doctors. contractors, lawyers, and the like found them easily affordable, and most could write the expense off of their taxes each year. There were certain features which had to be altered, such as the charging setup, since it was no longer wired into the automobile or truck systems to keep the battery charged, it needed to be done by hooking it up to the residential power the same way we do now.
Also the antenna required adjustments, since it was no longer running through the wiring setup inside and outside the glass windows. The biggest problem to get solved were increased calling areas, and the only way to fix the areas where calls could be made was to increase the number and placement of the antennas on the towers on the ground, and on tall _t and other structures. Once this was done, the network increased exponentialy.