"Larry" <noone@home.com> wrote in message
news:Xns9AEE7FDFFC162noonehomecom@208.49.80.253...
> 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.
>

There was no technical limit on range, so I used one with slight difficulty
in Calais to book a hotel in England (~40km to mast) and on the DFDS Dana
Regina about six hours out of Harwich in the North Sea. Exactly how far
from land I don't know, but my estimate is ~100km!