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The LAST Bag Phone Post!

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Real Estate Agent

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Oct 30, 2003, 10:13:31 PM10/30/03
to
Yeah, right. If you believe the subject line, I have some oceanfront
property in Arizona to discuss.

Anyway, while I was in the barber shop Tuesday, the discussion turned to
cell phones(?). Turns out there were a couple of analog users in the group,
including two with bag phones. These guys hang out in southeastern NC, and
"the small phones don't work." [Their words.]

Today, I was in the Alltel store, getting ready to set up some high-speed
wireless on a 7135. (More on that Friday evening.) A couple of customers
saw the brick phone that I carry and began discussing how it was the best
phone ever made.

"That's nothing," I replied. "Ask Susan {the clerk} about the bag phone I
brought in Monday for reprogramming."

"Oh," exclaimed one of the customers. "I have two of them. They talk from
anywhere!"

"That's right," replied Susan. "My mother keeps her bag phone handy because
she lives in a remote area."

Here's the point......Larry is not the last analog survivor. There are many
more activated bag phones out there than we suspect. And many of their
owners work for the wireless carriers which promote digital.

It's just not obvious because the owners don't come out of the closet. :)

-Paul-

__________________________________
I left the Brick phone at Alltel this morning for
a programming change. When I went back in
the afternoon, one of my business partners asked
me to pick up a data cable for his 7135.

The clerk handed me my phone, and then gave me
the cable. "Remember this moment," I told him. "It's
the last time you'll ever hand somebody a brick phone..."

".....Along with a data cable for a tri-mode digital phone
with built-in PDA," he said, completing my thought train perfectly!

N9WOS

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Oct 30, 2003, 10:46:54 PM10/30/03
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> Here's the point......Larry is not the last analog survivor. There are
many
> more activated bag phones out there than we suspect. And many of their
> owners work for the wireless carriers which promote digital.

Ow.... like the fact that all south central Indiana REMC
(rural electric municipal cooperative)
trucks and vehicles have a 3 watt analog phone in them.
And service is ran through cingular.
(Verizon wouldn't allow them to set them up so they went else where.)
Verizon's loss.
Kind of ironic.
They are driving a heavy lift truck that cost over 150 thousand dollars.
But they use business band radios and a 3 watt ANALOG cell phone.

Same as the Ameritech trucks.(now SBC)
They have a 3Watt ANALOG phone in them.
Most of them don't carry a digital cell phone at all.
They could have ANY phone they want, but what do they chose?
You guessed it. :-)


N9WOS

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Oct 30, 2003, 11:10:09 PM10/30/03
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> (rural electric municipal cooperative)
Edit.
(Rural electric membership corporation.)
I keep getting it messed up!!!!!!!!!!


Mike

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Oct 31, 2003, 12:05:22 AM10/31/03
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On Fri, 31 Oct 2003 03:13:31 GMT, "Real Estate Agent"
<spamblockC...@nc.rr.com> wrote:

>Here's the point......Larry is not the last analog survivor. There are many
>more activated bag phones out there than we suspect. And many of their
>owners work for the wireless carriers which promote digital.

Here's the problem...Alltel. Alltel has been - at least in my
experience - somewhat less aggressive at implementing digital in their
rural markets. They're doing it, but not nearly to the degree that
VZW has. (And yes, I know Larry's on VZW on that bag phone...it's
just a general observation of mine.)

I used to live in Roanoke, VA. VZW's CDMA coverage was excellent,
even in very rural areas off of U.S. highways in the middle of nowhere
in SW Virginia.

Alltel, though they eventually improved CDMA coverage along U.S. 220
in the Martinsville, VA area, absolutely *stunk* once you got past the
NC border. As last I remembered, they managed to increase digital
coverage coming north out of the Greensboro area...but there was still
a big gap between about 10 miles north of U.S. 220/NC 63 and the VA/NC
border. This could have changed in the past 6 months or so.

I'm not saying VZW is perfect when it comes to all its rural digital
coverage...obviously, things vary by region. That's just my
experience.

Mike

Stanley Cline

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Oct 31, 2003, 12:49:57 AM10/31/03
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On Fri, 31 Oct 2003 00:05:22 -0500, Mike <inund...@yahoo.com> wrote:

>Here's the problem...Alltel. Alltel has been - at least in my
>experience - somewhat less aggressive at implementing digital in their
>rural markets. They're doing it, but not nearly to the degree that

I've seen the very same thing. Among other things, ALLTEL was the
dead *last* carrier to build out digital along all of I-65 between
Montgomery and Mobile, AL and along I-16 from about 20 miles east of
Macon, GA (border with Cingular's Macon system) and the Statesboro
area -- and along both interstates their analog coverage was, and
probably still is, *ridiculously* poor (external antenna or 3W phone
all but required to get any coverage at all, and even then *very* low
signal -- -100 dBm or worse -- in many spots.)

From what I've seen, "original" ALLTEL markets such as south GA and
central AL (Mobile/I-65 south of Evergreen is former GTE/Contel,
Dothan is former Sprint/360) have been upgraded to CDMA *much* more
slowly than markets that were acquired from/with other companies
(Sprint/360, Aliant in Nebraska, SBC/Radiofone in Louisiana[*],
BAM/GTE/VZW, CenturyTel, etc.)

[*] Yes, SBC did in fact own the systems that were Radiofone in New
Orleans and CellOne in Baton Rouge and that are now ALLTEL for about
six months. SBC was about to convert them to TDMA, and actually sold
TDMA phones in those markets for a very short while, but the Cingular
partnership came about and so SBC sold them to avoid Cingular running
afoul of spectrum cap rules; Cingular kept former BellSouth systems,
which were already TDMA, in those markets.

-SC
--
Stanley Cline -- sc1 at roamer1 dot org -- http://www.roamer1.org/
...
"Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today. There might
be a law against it by that time." -/usr/games/fortune

David W. Studeman

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Oct 31, 2003, 1:25:00 AM10/31/03
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Real Estate Agent wrote:


Interesting that you mention analog because my cellphone built into my
Lincoln Mark VIII is an analog, hands free, voice activated setup that also
has noise filtering built into it to lessen background noise from the
vehicle and it uses the left side of the Ford/Jbl stereo system. I have
turned it on before and the audio quality of the recording that asks me to
hold on with a credit card handy (it is not activated so whoever has
service offers a single call for money I guess) is quite good! Better than
any itty bitty phone on my ear, digital or otherwise. Hmmm........


Dave

David W. Studeman

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Oct 31, 2003, 1:25:00 AM10/31/03
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Real Estate Agent wrote:

Diamond Dave

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Oct 31, 2003, 5:28:21 AM10/31/03
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On Fri, 31 Oct 2003 00:05:22 -0500, Mike <inund...@yahoo.com> wrote:


Alltel has poor coverage in rural areas of Virginia period!

Verizon has better coverage in rural areas - and its all CDMA digital!
(though my phone will go analog if needed)

(SIGH - wish my old bag phone still worked!!)

Dave

Larry W4CSC

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Oct 31, 2003, 7:20:39 PM10/31/03
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On Fri, 31 Oct 2003 03:13:31 GMT, "Real Estate Agent"
<spamblockC...@nc.rr.com> wrote:

>
>It's just not obvious because the owners don't come out of the closet. :)
>

Although many of us are "in the closet", so to speak, I think the
problem here is that most "toyphone" users live in CITIES and travel
INTERSTATES, bypassing the majority of bagphone and carphone users
enjoying their AMPS service.

By the way, the PRESIDENTIAL LIMO is an AMPS customer because its
crypto equipment won't work on crappy low-res digital service.....(c;

If the president runs illegal power on AMPS, who will bust him??.....

Larry W4CSC

"Very funny, Scotty! Now, BEAM ME MY CLOTHES! KIRK OUT!"

Real Estate Agent

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Oct 31, 2003, 10:11:34 PM10/31/03
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"Larry W4CSC" ...

>
> If the president runs illegal power on AMPS, who will bust him??.....
>

A local electronics shop specializes in repairing RF amplifiers. One day, a
six kilowatt unit arrived for repairs. The technician looked it over. In
addition to the obvious and immediate problem, he found several components
that probably would fail in the near future.

Seeking authorization to do the extra work, he called the number on the
repair ticket. The phone was answered with, "This is the Federal
Communications Commission. How may I direct your call?" He asked for the
Amateur Radio Operator by name and his call was switched to a high-ranking
official who thanked him and authorized the additional repairs.

"This amplifier exceeds the legal limit for the Amateur Radio Service," said
the technician. "Am I going to be in trouble for working on it?"

"No, Son," came the reply. "Just because my Caddy will run 100 MPH doesn't
mean I drive it that fast."

-Paul-


Larry W4CSC

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Nov 1, 2003, 12:57:45 AM11/1/03
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Hmm...back in the 70's, I built a homebrew amp for HF because of a
broadcast friend with an unlimited supply of 4-1000A 1KW power tubes.
He gave me brand-new airflow sockets, glass chimneys, plate pin heat
sinks, etc. for them. I say them because I got TWO of everything.

The rack I built it in was a WW2 US Navy old transmitter that was
about 24" wide by 18" deep by 7 ft high. I worked at a tech school
with a full machine shop and sheet metal shop so the students built my
panels and chassis for each section....plate supply, low voltage
supply/regulation, input chassis with dummy load and main RF amp assy
(with a neat viewing window so you could watch the roller inductor
monster turn, the vacuum variable capacitors move on either side of
the two 4-1000A power tubes glowing away like WLW in the 1930's.

A friend who worked for a "major electronics manufacturer" absconded
some great 270 degree industrial panel meters....0-7500VDC (plate
voltage), 0-1000maDC (plate current), 0-200maDC (screen current),
0-50maDC (grid current), 0-8VAC (filament voltage), 0-10KW (RF output
calibrated for a military surplus directional coupler meant for that
level).

The plate power supply was the guts of a 5KVA "pole pig" hooked up
backwards, connected to the power company through a 240VAC, 30A Variac
with a big wheel on the side of the lower chassis. You dialed up the
plate voltage you wanted with your foot. Adjust the drive to any
level from 100W to....well....too much....and you were in
business......great fun late at night on 75 meter phone, even full KW
AM was a breeze with a 25W transceiver output. The plate supply
filter was a home-made input choke sitting on 4 insulators to keep it
from flashing over to the chassis from windings to core and nine 8 uF,
10KV oil-filled, self-healing power company capacitors some ghost left
sitting by the plate transformer one day. They were full of PCB oil.

The amp was unusual for ham radio. Most hams simply tie the grids all
together and ground them driving the filament-cathode with an RF choke
in the filament circuit. My amp was a copy of a broadcast transmitter
that had a linear amp output, scaled down for my amp, made for a 5KW
BC transmitter.....common cathode. I designed the input circuit as a
150W resistive dummy load for the transceiver to operate into a
perfect load at any frequency, with a "volume control" drive pot to
adjust the RF drive to the proper grid and screen current levels for
great operation. 20 watts to the dummy load with the drive pot all
the way up gave you nearly full-limit grid current to the
tube-regulated grid bias power supply. The screen supply had two
parallel regulator tubes to hold the screen voltage steady at any
load, far in excess of what it needed.

The plate circuit was a shunt-fed pi network with 30KV doorknob
coupling caps between two metal plates, a home-brew plate choke to the
HVPS. The input vacuum variable to the pi network was 500 pf at 20KV
and for 75 and 160 meters there were two doorknobs parallel to that to
raise up the input capacitance. The output cap was a 4-section
transmitting air variable rated at 5KV from an old broadcast
transmitter. The rotary inductor was 40 turns of 1/4" square copper
bus stock with a 2-contact wiper that ran around inside of it. It
came out of the original transmitter the cabinet was for. It was
about 12" long and 6" diameter. It had more inductance than 160M
needed but would easily tune 29.7 Mhz on FM just fine....or anything
in between.

It was "tested" at full power, 6500VDC at over 950ma, which went well
until the RG-8A/U coax cable exploded in flames......I was SO
proud....(c; A buddy with a 1/2 wave end-fed AM antenna on 1280 Khz
suggested I come by the station and get some RG-17A/U off the reels
out back and that solved the problem. Late one night, during the
"Experimental Period", the 5KVA pole transformer the power company guy
promised me would be fine at "peak power" exploded, burning the pole
to the ground with boiling, flaming oil. A 15KVA replacement fix that
problem.

Running 6KV plate voltage at only 250 ma plate current to keep it
legal resulted in some amazing contacts without even a hint of red on
the plates, even on 100% duty cycle RTTY, which I always loved.
Operating near the limit of plate volts at very reduced current is
much more efficient than 2500-3000 volts on these tubes. Tuning was
done by watching the SCREEN current meter, just like my National
NCL-2000 with tetrode 8122 ceramics in it. That, too, was a fantastic
linear amplifier.

Well, the amp I have now only runs 12V on its collectors at about
120-130 amps. It's only 650 watts, a modified TenTec Hercules II.
You don't even have to tune the damned thing up. What fun is that?

Just because I built a 6KW linear amp, doesn't mean I have to RUN
6KW.....until your carrier pisses me off.

bro

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Nov 1, 2003, 11:09:26 AM11/1/03
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nos...@home.com (Larry W4CSC) wrote in message news:<3fa3437c...@news.knology.net>...

> Hmm...back in the 70's, I built a homebrew amp for HF because of a
> broadcast friend with an unlimited supply of 4-1000A 1KW power tubes.
> He gave me brand-new airflow sockets, glass chimneys, plate pin heat
> sinks, etc. for them. I say them because I got TWO of everything.
>

> The plate power supply was the guts of a 5KVA "pole pig" hooked up


> backwards, connected to the power company through a 240VAC, 30A Variac

I wanna see it can I touch it too?

> The plate supply
> filter was a home-made input choke sitting on 4 insulators to keep it
> from flashing over to the chassis from windings to core and nine 8 uF,
> 10KV oil-filled, self-healing power company capacitors some ghost left
> sitting by the plate transformer one day. They were full of PCB oil.

Yes Dude! Thats the kind of stuff I like.
We don't need any rules and reg crap around here.

> The amp was unusual for ham radio. Most hams simply tie the grids all
> together and ground them driving the filament-cathode with an RF choke
> in the filament circuit. My amp was a copy of a broadcast transmitter
> that had a linear amp output, scaled down for my amp, made for a 5KW
> BC transmitter.....common cathode. I designed the input circuit as a
> 150W resistive dummy load for the transceiver to operate into a
> perfect load at any frequency, with a "volume control" drive pot to
> adjust the RF drive to the proper grid and screen current levels for
> great operation. 20 watts to the dummy load with the drive pot all

dummy load? This usenet group is not your dummy load--all your high
power ranting, quit dumping on us Larry.
(just kidding--I'd really like to see this unit)

> the way up gave you nearly full-limit grid current to the
> tube-regulated grid bias power supply. The screen supply had two
> parallel regulator tubes to hold the screen voltage steady at any
> load, far in excess of what it needed.
>

> It was "tested" at full power, 6500VDC at over 950ma, which went well


> until the RG-8A/U coax cable exploded in flames......I was SO
> proud....(c; A buddy with a 1/2 wave end-fed AM antenna on 1280 Khz
> suggested I come by the station and get some RG-17A/U off the reels
> out back and that solved the problem. Late one night, during the
> "Experimental Period", the 5KVA pole transformer the power company guy
> promised me would be fine at "peak power" exploded, burning the pole
> to the ground with boiling, flaming oil.

Why did you have the bas-akcwards operating transformer on the pole?
What kind of hillbilly operation was this?

> Running 6KV plate voltage at only 250 ma plate current to keep it
> legal resulted in some amazing contacts without even a hint of red on
> the plates, even on 100% duty cycle RTTY, which I always loved.
> Operating near the limit of plate volts at very reduced current is
> much more efficient than 2500-3000 volts on these tubes. Tuning was
> done by watching the SCREEN current meter, just like my National
> NCL-2000 with tetrode 8122 ceramics in it. That, too, was a fantastic
> linear amplifier.

Aren't you really an electro paleontologist? More and more people
have no
appreciation for what you just said. Sadly most hams too.

>
> Well, the amp I have now only runs 12V on its collectors at about
> 120-130 amps. It's only 650 watts, a modified TenTec Hercules II.
> You don't even have to tune the damned thing up. What fun is that?
>
> Just because I built a 6KW linear amp, doesn't mean I have to RUN
> 6KW.....until your carrier pisses me off.

Hey this machine ain't goinna work to well at 850 megs is it?
You cant trick me with this important soundin' scribblin about some HF
unit.

> On Sat, 01 Nov 2003 03:11:34 GMT, "Real Estate Agent"
> <spamblockC...@nc.rr.com> wrote:
>
> >
> >"Larry W4CSC" ...

Keep up the bagphone posting Larry--I love it.
City folks have NO IDEA dick tracy phones can't compare in the sticks
to 3 watts and a good antenna. Much less to mobile amateur (any band)


> >> If the president runs illegal power on AMPS, who will bust him??.....
> >>

I saw George Jr leave denver by hellicopter in the main city park.
His follow around vehicles, of Blazers and vans were FULL of Hf, Uhf,
Sat, everything from dc to daylight.

I thought it was a little unsafe to let the public close to all the
vehicles
including the pres limo, just cause the pres had left.

one blazer was an ambulance--talked to the driver.
one van had gobs of computers, printers, fax type of stuff
the chatting support people quickly closed all the doors when they
realized
me and a friend were looking in from 30 feet away.

Kind of neat, that all these vehicles would be on a transport plane,
within
hours.

bri

CharlesH

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Nov 1, 2003, 2:20:43 PM11/1/03
to
In article <3fa2fb91...@news.knology.net>,

Larry W4CSC <nos...@home.com> wrote:
>On Fri, 31 Oct 2003 03:13:31 GMT, "Real Estate Agent"
><spamblockC...@nc.rr.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>It's just not obvious because the owners don't come out of the closet. :)
>>
>Although many of us are "in the closet", so to speak, I think the
>problem here is that most "toyphone" users live in CITIES and travel
>INTERSTATES, bypassing the majority of bagphone and carphone users
>enjoying their AMPS service.
>
>By the way, the PRESIDENTIAL LIMO is an AMPS customer because its
>crypto equipment won't work on crappy low-res digital service.....(c;
>
>If the president runs illegal power on AMPS, who will bust him??.....

If they are sending encrypted data using modem-like tones, of course
that would not work on digital, since the digital codecs are lossy and
tuned specifically for rendering human voice. Same reason analog modems
won't work on digital. Of course, if they wanted to, they could
use a data connection and send the encrypted info that way. Which is
what they are going to have to do after the AMPS system is turned off.

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