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A little introduction

PostPosted: 2013 Dec 08, 06:47
by TheMaritimeMan
Hi everyone,

Thanks go to spectreman for contacting me on YouTube. I was unaware of this site, which contains the only forum for vintage cell phone collection that I'm aware of. In recent times I was wishing a site like this existed - it never showed up in Google searches I did, or anything. But here I am now! It would appear my arrival on this site has been awaited by a few people - I'm flattered! I suppose I'll provide here some background on my hobbies and knowledge involving older cell phones.

My name is Trent, and I'm a 19-year electrical engineering student in Canada. I own a collection of about 15 cell phones. My interest started about 8 years ago when I acquired a Motorola MicroTAC 650e and a Motorola Profile 300e (circa late 1990s analog phones) that belonged to my grandparents. I fell in love with the unique design aspects of these and other older cell phones, and I made a point of finding more. Most of my phones were found at yard sales or given to me by friends, and a couple come from eBay.

The bulk of my interest is in analog Motorola phones. These only make up about half of my collection, though - the rest I happened to acquire, but don't really care for. If you've seen my videos on YouTube (another thanks to spectreman for the mention), you'll notice I have some expertise in Motorola car phones and their derivatives, the transportable phones and bag phones (I'll hereafter mention only the bag phone, although all three derivatives are applicable). My fascination with these particular phones lies in their unique, rugged, modular design, and the sheer number of different models were made over the years. I always think I've seen them all, and then something new comes along!

As there is little published information about Motorola bag phones, I've made a long-term project (a third of my life now!) of learning and documenting as much information about them as I can. This is includes information such as the different models that were made, and technical information such as various hidden features that reside in the phone's firmware. The fruit of my labor (for nontechnical information) is the Wikipedia article Motorola Bag Phone. I created and authored the article, based on my own original research (which is wrong for a Wikipedia article, but I have no other choice), in 2007. I updated it with more information until 2010. I picked it up again this summer, and made some huge improvements to it. I can now confidently say that it's the largest and greatest collection of information about these phones in the world, and I'm pretty proud of how it's turned out.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to being able to contribute here. I'll definitely add photos of my phones and fill in any missing information I can contribute, and I'm thinking of writing a couple of articles pertaining to older Motorola phones, such as how to enter the NAM programming mode and the test mode, and fun stuff you can do in those modes. Also, this Christmas I will become the proud owner of a Tektronix CMD80 test system, which can emulate an AMPS, E/J/NTACS, CDMA, TDMA, or PCS base station, so I'll be able to write an article about fun stuff you can do with that, as well (similar to spectreman's article on his JRC system). And of course, I'll offer my knowledge here on the forums wherever appropriate. I hope to be a useful source of wisdom here.

I'm currently tied up with exams until Christmas, but after then I should be able to have some fun here. I look forward to it!

Re: A little introduction

PostPosted: 2013 Dec 08, 12:43
by spectreman
Howdi Trent, and a big welcome to the site ! Was hoping you would turn up here one day.

I am currently working in the radio broadcasting industry, been in the radio/TV, communications, electronics industry all my life. I am 43 years young, ha !

Will keep in touch. Cheers, Chris.

Re: A little introduction

PostPosted: 2013 Dec 15, 22:56
by oldmobil
Hi TheMaritimeMan!
I'm happy to see a real Motorola-expert like You here.
About me and this project:
I've tried to find an international mobile collector's site or forum, but haven't found. My personal collection site (http://www.oldmobil.hu) is running for 10 years, but is is only in hungarian so I've decided to create an international site for the mobile collectors. I've started to learn MySQL database programming (it's very interesting) and started to develop this site at the beginning of this year and opened it for the public in mid 2013. So this is a relatively new thing.
I started to collect old phones in 2002 and I've created the first collector site in Hungary. My best like phones are early Ericssons, Motorolas and NMT ones. Now I work as photographer and journalist. My son also like old Ericssons, see my new photo on the Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mobilecollectors.net
Regards,
Peter

Re: A little introduction

PostPosted: 2014 Jan 24, 14:00
by Tailor
Hi Everyone, szia Péter ;)

Just found the site and thought I would also introduce myself.

I'm a 40yr old software programmer in London, UK for the telecoms industry. I spent 6 yrs working at Samsung R&D however this is all landline and VoIP telephony not mobile. Mobile has always been a hobby of mine since my Dad brought home a Motorola 8000s whilst I was still at school.

I have around 50 phones from the 80's and 90's with a particular favorite for Motorola. i notice the db is a bit light on early Motorolas so I will upload photo's and details.

The jewel in my collection is a Motorola 8000x.

Re: A little introduction

PostPosted: 2014 Jan 25, 08:52
by spectreman
Hello Russell ! (have seen the website of your company, very good).
Welcome to the mobilecollectors group.
I have a fair collection of Motorola analogue mobiles too, but mostly AMPS versions.
Just have the one Motorola Microtac 1989 model that is ETACS.
The 8000x would be great to have, but sadly they sell for far too much for me to afford.
I do have a partial copy of the 8000x service manual with some circuit diagrams.
That's as far as I have got with the 8000x.

Cheers, Chris.

Re: A little introduction

PostPosted: 2014 Jan 25, 18:17
by Attila
Welcome TheMaritimeMan!

I'm Hungarian old mobile phone collector. I study law at university. Further good luck of your collection.
My website: http://regimobilok.gportal.hu.

Re: A little introduction

PostPosted: 2014 Jan 26, 13:04
by oldmobil
Hello Tailor! :lol:

Welcome here! I am anxious to see Your old Motorolas. Especially the 8000x.
Have a nice time on this site!
Peter

Re: A little introduction

PostPosted: 2014 Aug 27, 12:40
by mobilist
Hello all!

I am a Dutch importer/exporter of various goods, including phones. I started collecting mobile phones not long ago, after I noticed that certain old phones are not really wanted anymore for export purposes, and are mainly bought by people who are going to strip and recycle them. Because many of those phones are still in good, useable condition, I thought it would be a nice idea to preserve some examples.

So, if I buy a stock lot of used phones now, I just keep the ones that I think are in some way interesting. For example, here's the result of the past month:

Image

Re: A little introduction

PostPosted: 2014 Aug 27, 18:53
by torshammer
Hi
I think I never introduced myself. I have worked in the mobile industry since 1985.
Maybe I made the first digital cellphone call ever made. We at Ericsson had an early GSM testbed
and I programmed the speech coding unit that was used in the testbed.

I started an effort a few years ago to collect all phones between 1981-2001 branded Ericsson.
It is about 450 pieces in the collection now. I have mostly camped on the esato forum for vintage Ericsson.
We started an effort on a database for Ericsson phones. Have a look.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc ... WbkE#gid=0

You can see my collection here. https://picasaweb.google.com/102808810755799396037
The device I miss the most is the red R520 GPRS prototype. If you know of one please let me know.

/torshammer

Re: A little introduction

PostPosted: 2014 Aug 28, 09:39
by oldmobil
Hello torshammer,

I'm very happy to see You here :-) Would be very interesting to take part of born of GSM...
I have a low resolution scanned photo from an early Ericsson test unit from 1986, You maybe work with this.
Image
Peter