cellphoneunlock.net <cellphoneunlock.net.2d93330@cellbanter.com> wrote in
news:cellphoneunlock.net.2d93330@cellbanter.com:

> Their first cellphone (1973) was the DynaTAC
>> http://tinyurl.com/552xb3
>> which as you can see is about twice the size.
>

It was very expensive so we hung onto our bagphones for many years until
the prices came down. There were no subsidies. I have one in my
collection that still worked, perfectly, until they shut off AMPS. The day
before they cut off AMPS I called 611 on it on Alltel and told the TSR what
I was using to talk to her. She asked me to hold and a supervisor came
online who had been with the company since it was called 360
Communications. He and I had a great time playing with it that last day
and I talked to many of the assembled old timers on it who couldn't believe
someone still had one on the air.

Mine has a battery eliminator that plugs into the back end where the long
battery went. The cord on the bottom of it has a cigarette lighter plug
for 12VDC. To use it in the house, there is a 12VDC power supply that is
all one unit with an AC plug on the side and a cigarette lighter socket on
the bottom to plug the phone into.

A friend who had no sellphone had a family emergency up in upstate NY a
couple of years ago. I handed it to him to carry on his trip and asked him
to try it out on 611 a few times when he stopped. He found it worked
excellent all the way up and back connecting to various systems on A and B
AMPS.

They were 600 milliwatts and had a range with the rubber antenna on top of
about 8 miles to the tall towers sellphones used to connect to.

The finest replacement was the StarTac, used up to the last days of AMPS by
loyal fans.