Actually I was speaking of _cellular_ phones, not the predecessor
>system. When cellular phones first came out, IIRC, they were
>generally available only as car mounted units.
Ah memory.......can't remember what it was like to have a good one! ;-)
Yours may be better. The only hard-mount I remember was an option to do that with a "bag" phone. Indeed, it's possible that the first ones didn't have a (standard) option for a portable battery. If that was true, it lasted for a very short time.
I got my first AMPS analog cell phone in 1984 just after Los Angeles fired up for the Olympic Games of the Summer of 1984. (Chicago was the launch city in late 1983.)
There was no option other than a mounted phone. Most had the R/T in the trunk, similar to the old system.
I wanted the "best" so I opted for the NEC that had the handset, R/T and heavy battery pack that could disconnect from the car mount on the floor of the car. I bought it from an authorized Pacific Bell agent for $3,000, with a return policy. A week later I found an independent dealer up near LAX Airport who sold them for $2,000 (That was the best deal then). I took the unit back to the authorized Pacific Bell agent and got my money back. But, they were madder than the blazes.
I used that unit for 5 years or so. I worked great. But, once the novelty wore off I never took it out of the car. In 1989, or so, I canned it for a bag phone that cost about $500.
But, there were no contracts or carrier hype, per se.
Just ran across the box with my first analog Cellphone in it - an Alpine 1000 that was used when I got it. A little smaller deck than the Motran and a fairly small control head/handset cradle, separate hands-free speaker and remote handsfree electret mike for on the visor.
3W and 5Db Omni on the roof, I could get a signal out from practically anywhere. Then I went to a well-used 1st-gen Motorola Brick that was okay, and a Motorola America Series bag phone that was nice - I could still plug it into that 5Db on the roof...
Only wish I could get the same coverage now, the latest and greatest digital phones aren't all that great when the weak link is a poor antenna.
The truckers preferred Low VHF for their MTS/IMTS phones, the signal carried. IIRC Los Angeles had two 35-MHz low-band channels for the entire metro area - ZM and ZY come to mind...
Old San Fernando CO (Step) had a VHF IMTS base. Since they didn't move it to the New San Fernando GTD-5 switchroom building a block away, I have a feeling it had long been shut down by the 1987-88 cut-over period.
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