Are there Mobile Rotary phones?

[Paul Albertson]

Are there "rotary" phones that were intended to be mobile? Similar to what we do with a cell phone today. Any examples?

My employer requires (supplies) a cell phone I am to keep near, when practical. Although the smart/cell phones have a lot of nice features, nearly all of these features are not useful to me. I prefer to just talk and listen. Now that I am older, I want a better quality audio signal.  I merged a linesman phone BECO with a subscriber box, added a battery and Bluetoooth transmitter, and now enjoy using a real handset on these calls. Only one ring tone, but it is clear and commanding. Supports the rotary dialing feature too. Really shocks the younger employees. (How does it work? What is the wheel for?) I will probably look for a smaller box someday, but for now, it is working reliably. Thought I would share in case others had similar prejudice favoring a handset.

[twocvbloke]

Well, there was the experimental mobile phone developed here in the UK in the 1970s (with an American Trimline handset!!):

http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=6970.0

Since then, not that I know of...

[Paul Albertson]

Thanks for the reference. The video is on youtube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vix6TMnj9vY&feature=related

So appears no rotary types made it to the public?

[twocvbloke]

So appears no rotary types made it to the public?

Pretty much, the GPO didn't want to do it, the government wouldn't open the airwaves for it to be licensed, so, it was scrapped in this country, shame really, the mobile phone could have been very different today had it gone ahead...

It'd be fun to try such experiments today somehow, but I wouldn't know how to begin, or if there's even any free airwaves to do such things legally....

[Greg G.]

Are there "rotary" phones that were intended to be mobile? Similar to what we do with a cell phone today. Any examples?

My employer requires (supplies) a cell phone I am to keep near, when practical. Although the smart/cell phones have a lot of nice features, nearly all of these features are not useful to me. I prefer to just talk and listen. Now that I am older, I want a better quality audio signal.  I merged a linesman phone BECO with a subscriber box, added a battery and Bluetoooth transmitter,

There's these gizmos if you want a portable device:

http://www.sparkfun.com/products/9803

http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/cellphone/8928/?srp=3

[Phonesrfun]

Oh, but there were rotary mobile phones.


See:  http://www.wb6nvh.com/MTSfiles/Carphone4.htm

And:  http://www.wb6nvh.com/MTSfiles/Carphone5.htm

And:  http://www.wb6nvh.com/MTSfiles/Carphone6.htm

And:  http://www.wb6nvh.com/MTSfiles/Carphone7.htm

Also see the intro at: http://www.wb6nvh.com/Carphone.htm

[twocvbloke]

There's these gizmos if you want a portable device:

http://www.sparkfun.com/products/9803

That's the bluetooth version, they also have GSM ones too (just add a SIM card for a 900, 1800 or 1900MHz network)...

http://www.sparkfun.com/products/286

Shame they don't have internal imagery of these ones though, the Bluetooth ones looked interesting...

(shame about the price though!!!)

[Bill]

From 1967 to 1969, I worked for Motorola's Communications and Electronics Division in Oak Park, Ill. I remember at the time that Motorola had developed a vehicle-mounted mobile phone. It was hugely expensive, had a rotary dial on the front, and had a range of only a few miles at best. It interfaced with the PSTN system through a dedicated interface at the transmitter site - there were several sites, operating on different frequncies in the 150-MHz range, spread over Chicago, but I don't think there was automatic handoff between them. Cellular technology, with all that implies, had been invented but not deployed.

In that time frame there was a system called MTS (Mobile Telephone System), and the thing that I described above might have been it, though my memory isn't quite clear. At any rate, MTS was quickly followed by IMTS (Improved ...), and there was a rotary dial on this one, though again I don't think it was truly cellular.

Starting in the early 70's, my wife took a management post at AT&T, and we were allowed to buy, at subsidized but still huge cost, one of the first mobile phones, and mount it in her car. As I recall, it was quasi-cellular, in that it performed automatic handoffs among sites within a given geographic area (roaming area) - but the roaming area was small and if you left it, the call was dropped. Similarly, if someone wanted to call you, they had to know what roaming area you were in, and dial a roaming code before dialing the number. Kind of a pain, for sure. However, this phone, one of the earliest true cell phones, had a touch-tone push-button dial.

Probably more answer than you wanted, but there it is.

Bill

[Phonesrfun]

I believe that both the MTS and IMTS systems were definitely point-to-point from the car to a VHF tower somewhere centrally located in town. Or, in the case of the low band rural, on some mountain top in the rural area with a repeater system to hand off the calls, as opposed to a cellular concept.

As a ham radio operator, several of us bought surplus Bell System GE Progress Line tranceivers and converted them from 150 mHz operation to Ham Radio 2 meter 144 mHz and they were a nice rig.  Heavy and clumsy, but nice.

The range on those radios with a quarter-wave (Approx 18") antenna was generally about 20 miles around town and significantly more if going between a car and a mountain top.  In amateur radio operation, we would ust a repeater on a mountain top and use the repeater to work other hams in town or even out of town.  For instance, a ham in a car in Portland, Oregon can easily work another ham in Bend, Oregon which has a mountain range (The Cascades) between them, by using the Mt. Hood repeater.

This same technology was used in the MTS world.  The problem with this technology is that there were good and bad spots around town, and signals would fade as you drive around a hill or a tall building, and were very much affected by other strong signals.  The other problem is that there was no multiplexing which is possible in the digital world which allows for the simultaneous sharing of a radio signal's bandwidth.  In MTS, each car phone tied up one whole channel from beginning to end.  That system would never have allowed for the millions of simultaneous calls used in the cellular world.

Cellular technology has overcome a lot of these problems, but has repalced them with newer state of the art versions of fading and dropping calls.

[AE_Collector]

Shortly before Cellular arrived here in Vancouver, we used the Glenayre 2020 type IMTS systems in some vehicles at work. For me this was the first time to use a car phone. To cover Vancouver we had many many sites but as Bill said, I do not think that they handed off calls to the next site. Each site had a good range but drive out of range and you lost the call.

Terry

[mwplefty]

They do have that rotary dial application for the I-Phone.

[HarrySmith]

There is one of the rotary car phones Bill mentions below for sale on eBay right now!

http://www.ebay.com/itm/140768635375

[Russ Kirk]

Here is a photo of my phone I bought off eBay for $50.

[HowardPgh]

This is the newest version.

[old_stuff_hound]

From 1967 to 1969, I worked for Motorola's Communications and Electronics Division in Oak Park, Ill. I remember at the time that Motorola had developed a vehicle-mounted mobile phone. It was hugely expensive, had a rotary dial on the front, and had a range of only a few miles at best. It interfaced with the PSTN system through a dedicated interface at the transmitter site - there were several sites, operating on different frequncies in the 150-MHz range, spread over Chicago, but I don't think there was automatic handoff between them. Cellular technology, with all that implies, had been invented but not deployed.

From about 1990 to 1996 I worked at a Mercedes dealership. The owner had a 1969 MB 600 SWB that had one of those in it....



(Not his car, just and image I found on the web)