When did cordless telephones come out?

[Robert Gift]

Bought our first cordless telephone at a garage sale.

Whehelping a retired nurse at her house a few houses down the street, my cordless phone with antenna fully extended did not always ring.
Under my back porch overhang I.nstalled a two-bell outdooringer - from another garage sale.
When I heard it ring, if the cordless telephone did not ring, I ran toward my house to get enough signal.

(I altered a 24-hour clock timer to open the circuit to the outdooringer between 7 pm to 9 am.
Do not recall thathe outdooringer had a Ringer Equivalency Number.

1:13 pm Mountain DaylighTime

[MMikeJBenN27]

If you are talking about cordless phones that looked like a standard phone, but with an antenna instead of a cord, I think those came out in the late 50s, maybe not until the 60s.  As you have discovered, they will ring when on or close to the base station, but may not if you have the phone some distance away from it.

Mike

[RDPipes]

If you are talking about cordless phones that looked like a standard phone, but with an antenna instead of a cord, I think those came out in the late 50s, maybe not until the 60s.  As you have discovered, they will ring when on or close to the base station, but may not if you have the phone some distance away from it.

Mike

Oh Gees! I remember those, had one in the early 70's or 80's I believe. I could walk out to the mail box
with it but no further which was okay with me but, the dadburn batteries never seemed to last more then a month
and I had to keep replacing them, had a Cobra brand back then that at the time was suppose to be top notch.

[Robert Gift]

If you are talking about cordless phones that looked like a standard phone, but with an antenna instead of a cord, I think those came out in the late 50s, maybe not until the 60s.  As you have discovered, they will ring when on or close to the base station, but may not if you have the phone some distance away from it.
Mike

This was from the 1980s? with a squared-corners transceiver with an.tenna which could be pulled out about 18? inches for bettereception.
To increase range, I placed the base/charger in the upstairs bedroom window.

It was a great benefit when under the car charging oil, mowing the lawn, up in trees pruning orepairing the roof.

6:46 a.m. MDT

[Robert Gift]

... I could walk out to the mail box with it but no further which was okay with me ...

About a mile from home, I discovered our different, latter-made cordless telephone in myehicle.
I pressed TALK and faintly heardial tone!
Could notell if it connected to my home base or someonelse's.

[MMikeJBenN27]

If it looked kind of like a big cell phone, it was 80s or later.  The original cordless phones looked like a regular home phone.

Mike

[HarrySmith]

one of these monstrosities?

[countryman]

I remember looking at cordless phones in electronics catalogs in the early 80ies. The were available to buy, but illegal to use. Not to mention "long range" versions! The first ones legal to Germany may have appeared  around 1985, but were prohibitively priced for most consumers. After the liberalization of the phone market prices started to drop, especially after DECT became an internationally accepted standard.

Here's an early "grey import" model that I have in the collection. There may have been cases where "illegal" phones were confiscated, but it can't be many. If no interference was caused they were usually tolerated.

[MMikeJBenN27]

Probably 80s or 90s.

Mike

[MMikeJBenN27]

Back before you could buy your own phone, they sometimes did confiscate illegal phones.  If you disconnected the ringer, they couldn't tell that you had it, but if you didn't, they could tell by the ringing current draw.  They would then come to you house to "inspect" you phone and phone wiring - actually looking for an illegal phone - and if they found one, were supposed to confiscate it, but often just disconnected it and told you that in order to use it, you first have to bring it to a business office and have it inspected.  Then have the phone company re-install it and charge you, providing it passed inspection, both for installation and every month a higher service charge.

Mike

[RDPipes]

Back before you could buy your own phone, they sometimes did confiscate illegal phones.  If you disconnected the ringer, they couldn't tell that you had it, but if you didn't, they could tell by the ringing current draw.  They would then come to you house to "inspect" you phone and phone wiring - actually looking for an illegal phone - and if they found one, were supposed to confiscate it, but often just disconnected it and told you that in order to use it, you first have to bring it to a business office and have it inspected.  Then have the phone company re-install it and charge you, providing it passed inspection, both for installation and every month a higher service charge.

Mike

I've always heard that but, in the 90's I had 5 phones and one outdoor ringer in my house and did some of the wiring myself.
One was even an early AE touch tone speaker phone and I had a pulse only account and all had their ringers hooked up and worked, in fact I had to cut back on the outdoor ringer because I was over the Rem limit. Never had Ma Bell stop buy or ever question it.I reckon maybe I've always been lucky like that.

[paul-f]

If you are talking about cordless phones that looked like a standard phone, but with an antenna instead of a cord, I think those came out in the late 50s, maybe not until the 60s.  As you have discovered, they will ring when on or close to the base station, but may not if you have the phone some distance away from it.

Here are some past topics covering cordless phones.

Did W.E. ever make a Wireless Telephone??
http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=19915.0

Rovafone
http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=8379.0

[MMikeJBenN27]

Yes!  THOSE are the ones!  They were very expensive, toys for the rich we thought.

Mike

[MMikeJBenN27]

By the mid 80s, you could own your own phone, and have as many as you wanted.  But before about 1981, you could NOT.  Yes, some of us did, but we didn't have them able to ring.  Some folks had a 4 prong and matching jack for their "extra" phone, and if the phone company said they were coming out, or they saw a telephone truck, they would just unplug it and hide it.  The jack was often in the closet.

Mike

[Robert Gift]

one of these monstrosities?

Yes.  They were all similar to that, I recall
Now we have wonderful Panasonic KX-TG4021 phones without external antennas.
One base and four "satellite" phones on 6.5V chargers.    REN: 0.1B

9:23 a.m. MDT