It has been 40 years since the first concept cell phone was used in NYC.  I had a vested interest in these devices. I started working on the cell phones when my company, Radio Shack, introduced their line of the consumer version in 1985.  This one first showed up in the 1986 RS catalog, distributed in Sept 1985.

  There was a white corporate version introduced 3 years earlier.  This was advertised only to corporations and well-to-do individuals only. The old white one was permanantly mounted with the base in the vehicle trunk with the wiring harness going to the front for the handset with the antenna trunk or roof mountings.  I didn't work on those white ones but the first portable black holster mount one (cat. # 17-1002) that mounted in a holster in the trunk. 

  This one was large and heavy with a handle for transport.  This separated into two halves, one half of it was the gel cell battery pack, the other half, the electronics. I serviced on this line from 1985 - 2000. All of the RS branded were Nokia phones plus I did some Motorola branded versions our stores sold.  The ones I worked on were the first Analog/Digital types that will no longer work with today's systems.

  After being laid off after working nearly 20 years for this company, I got out my stack of commission sheets I had to fill out as I completed the repairs and was turned in on Friday. My tally was over 32,000 cellphones serviced on my bench. With the CB radios, scanners, ham radios, business band, cd players, large stereo receivers, PA amplifiers and wireless microphones with speakers following. 

  My company had nearly 40 shops available to service these cell phones. In 1999 RS decided to streamline things when the newer operating format that more resembles today's cell phones began to take effect.  I had a Marconi communications tester for the cell phones that was leased to my shop for $10,000 per year.  That newer version of the test set zoomed to $50,000 per year and shut down the cell phone repairs to most of the remaining shops save 4.  Those 4 went on a 24 hour open schedule to offset the cost of the test equipment. 

  I was laid off more than 1 year after they took the cellphone repairs away from my shop on the exact date I forecasted one year earlier when I came back from the Texas Star Party (TSP), a weeklong campout meeting of amateur astronomers, and found that two of the shipping and receiving crew were laid off. I said to the shop that when I got back from next year's TSP, There would be no shop to come back to. Sure enough when I was preparing to go to TSP 2001, The district manager came in and announced that all of the consumer electronics and half of the computer techs were being laid off.

  There was a Monday closure that all of the laid off techs had to work breaking things down before getting their full severance.  The district mamager, an orange C-8 owner, had me doing the finishing touches of the repairs or transferring those that cannot be repaired in time sent to another shop.  He let me go on friday afternoon to go to TSP after lunch I had at the local Subway in which the store manager gave me my last lunch there gratis.  The district manager payed me for the vacation time as well as the severance.

  It was an odd feeling when I worked on the remaining units that the benches behind me were dissolving as the techs were breaking them down.  When I looked behind me as I processed that last unit, I saw nothing but the far wall with the front door visible.  I said aloud "I am done!" and my German-with-a-Green-Card manager said "You're done and you're on vacation! Get lost!". That was it. 

  Despite servicing cell phones, I never owned a one until a few months ago my sister gave me one from her family plan because she was concerned that her "transister" was traipsing across the desert without a phone. 

  Joelene

Article. Scroll down to the old archive report video.

Neat! We sure have come a long way. My phone is a Sony Ericsson e10i. Tiny little bugger!

http://img.auctiva.com/imgdata/1/7/0/4/8/3/6/webimg/658098657_tp.jpg

I love my phone! Note : NOT MY HAND IN THE PIC!!

  Yes, the same with the smartphone users who tries to use a luddite phone like you, me and my brother-in-law owns.  Mine has a camera with low quality piss poor video while my brother-in-law's doesn't.  We caught my smartphone owner sister trying to wand the tiny display on his phone to access some numbers.  We tease her for that to this day. 

  Joelene

Does anyone remember ...

I had to have a cell phone in the business I was in but have secretly always resented the thought that I was always accessible 24/7 by the three companies I was working for and their client companies. I finally bought one for my wife in case she was off somewhere and had an emergency, she's an anomaly for a woman though because she never uses it, ever! I have to take it out of her purse and charge it at times in the event she might need it.

What did society do before cell phones? There is a $124 fine in this state for talking or texting while driving, no-one obeys or cares. I have concluded that most women should have been born with a phone fixture attached to the side of their head because some women can't resist calling someone, anyone just to be having a phone conversation. I hate having to be around people who feel compelled to talk on their phone in public places, it can wait, no-one in the room wants to hear your private stuff , we don't care and it's rude as hell! I was stopped at a light behind a big iron worker in his pick-up truck, his hard hat hanging in the back window. He had a bumper sticker on his truck tool box that said, "I'll bet your driving would improve if that phone was up your ass!" It was crude, but I had to smile.

Had to have one of those silly b->-bleeped-<-hones back in the very early nineties for work, minutes weren't cheap and peak minutes were ridiculous. After that, didn't fool with the things until 2005, now I only have a cell phone and no landline at all.

Quote from: Jaime R D on April 04, 2013, 08:33:53 AM
Had to have one of those silly b->-bleeped-<-hones back in the very early nineties for work, minutes weren't cheap and peak minutes were ridiculous. After that, didn't fool with the things until 2005, now I only have a cell phone and no landline at all.

Yes, I know that a lot of people are dumping their landline, I thought of it before and during the last Presidential election because the phone rang incessantly with calls for other states, Democrats, Republicans and every other stripe of political BS. I get my wifi on the line so I may be stuck with a landline regardless.

Quote from: Shantel on April 04, 2013, 08:42:33 AM
Yes, I know that a lot of people are dumping their landline, I thought of it before and during the last Presidential election because the phone rang incessantly with calls for other states, Democrats, Republicans and every other stripe of political BS. I get my wifi on the line so I may be stuck with a landline regardless.

Yeah, I figured I didn't need the landline after my dad forwarded it to a dead number about a year before he passed away due to telemarketers and all that crap and I had forgotten it, still paid it every month along with the digital cable and internet as a package, so it didn't dawn on me for a couple years, lol. I had both of us on cell phones, so we didn't use it much. I finally dumped the package and just went with the internet and use satellite for television, courtesy of a mirrored receiver that my brother pays for. And the nice thing about that is that when the power goes out, I can use the generator and still have television right after a storm.

Quote from: Jaime R D on April 04, 2013, 08:49:52 AM
Yeah, I figured I didn't need the landline after my dad forwarded it to a dead number about a year before he passed away due to telemarketers and all that crap and I had forgotten it, still paid it every month along with the digital cable and internet as a package, so it didn't dawn on me for a couple years, lol. I had both of us on cell phones, so we didn't use it much. I finally dumped the package and just went with the internet and use satellite for television, courtesy of a mirrored receiver that my brother pays for. And the nice thing about that is that when the power goes out, I can use the generator and still have television right after a storm.

Cool, sounds like you're on top of it and keeping the expenses down. I have Direct TV which I prefer, but I have the Comcast phone and Internet package, I thought of getting rid of the phone service but haven't looked into it because we seldom keep the cell phone on, so I just keep paying like I do with all the other billing entities that assume that I am an ATM. 

Quote from: Jamie D on April 04, 2013, 03:33:39 AM
Does anyone remember ...

Those sepia colored images were the earlier versions of the car phone, not to be confused with the cell phones.  These ran on the VHF band and they had only a few channels.  You had to go through the Mobile Operator so she can patch your call to a landline or another car phone.  The car phones were the last service in the old Bell System that you had to go through an Operator to connect a call before they finally automated that service in the early 1970's. 
  My mom worked for Mountain Bell in their Denver phone book directory division and she would get the Mountain Bell newsletter each month or two.  I used to read that newsletter about the advances that the Bell System and Western Electric was doing and implementing. 

  Joelene
                                                   

Quote from: kkut on April 04, 2013, 06:37:07 AM
Which part?     I do remember the Convoy song way back when, it's in my head now, thanks. 

At your service.

  I remember that C. W. McCall's song.  I was working at a mom and pop CB/auto stereo shop before working for that consumer electronics giant.  That was on the radio at the time.  It spawned other CB related songs.  Ironically, it was the advent of the PC followed by the better affordability of cell phones coupled with a long sunspot cycle that did interfere with communications on the CB band that was its death knell of the CB's popularity.  This one you still may remember.  It has a surprising ending.



  Joelene