--- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> Two AMPS carriers there are Rodgers and Bell Canada > (and affiliates) Rodgers has the A side and is rumored > to be dropping all AMPS coverage by next month, Rogers started off life as Cantel on the 'A' side, and when I worked cellular in the 1990's we couldn't believe that Cantel was adopting TDMA as its digital format when it was obvious even then that it was the inferior technology and likely to be short-lived. Still, they plunged ahead and were supported by a lot of the major manufacturers at the time which are probably all wondering where the time went now that TDMA customers are getting flushed by Cantel (Rogers) right along with their analog predecessors as of the end of May this year (one of my co-workers still running an older Nokia analog phone was sent a letter to the effect analog would be discontinued as of June, and was offered an upgrade path to digital.) As to the fellow at the lake, when I was working in cellular 1986-1997(ish), that sort of fringe access issue came up very, very often. Usually they'd be supplied with a 3 watt bagphone like the NEC 8A, Mitsubishi 50 or 55, Walker 910, or whatever Motorola had going that month, and a suitably directional antenna rigged to their cottage or boat or ATCO trailer or what-have-you and pointed towards the nearest cellsite or cellsite repeater/range-extender. Cantel used to be helpful in this regard by doing a signal-strength survey in whatever fringe location was being contemplated, ultimately advising on whether the 3W phone and directional antenna would be reliable or not. From what I remember the Walker had an RJ-11 interface, and has been previously mentioned, the Motorola units had an interface available which would enable any POTS equipment to be used to originate/receive calls, as the device synthesized all the necessary loop current etc. that a POTS phone needed, as well as a DTMF decoder and sensors for things like hookflash etc. You could actually pick up the handset of a POTS phone and make calls on the celphone transparently (when it worked -- it hung up now and then requiring a cold boot of the the whole works.) When I installed these devices it was primarily for "Mobile Office" type operations where the interface was used to enable fax transmission/reception over cellular in all sorts of different signal environments (the chief problem being that people wanted to be able to walk away from their 'Mobile Office' setups and be able to pick up their faxes hours or even days later -- which the Moto interface seldom allowed in my own experience thanks to various hangups and glitches. The interface was something like $350 if memory serves, and apart from boats and real-estate people and stockbrokers and a few others - some of the chief customers at the time were Emergency Services including the Fire Dept., who ordered one installed in their Incident Command Post so that they could be faxed building plans on demand when called out to a fire. Really, when I was a twenty-something technician in Cellular -- these Moto devices were the sex. Even in the mid-late 1990's, outfits like Cellular One in the U.S. would surplus out literally thousands of 3W bag and in-car mobiles as coverage improved and everyone switched over to .6W analog handhelds, for cents on the dollar. The outfit I worked for purchased hundreds of them to use as extended warranty parts and exchange units for the then-less-mature system here in Vancouver, and for awhile you could make a few dollars as a technician doing that. I got out in '97 when it became clear there was no money in repairing things which suddenly had a replacement value of $100, and shortly thereafter you could pick up bagphones at the flea market for 20 bucks when scarcely a year before I'd been swapping out their keypads for $67.50 Sorry if it's all a bit OT, but thanks for the trip down memory lane. When I eventually left Cellular and took my Weller soldering station and Marconi 2955/2957A with me, people naturally asked why I was prepared to chuck such a career for what I'm doing now. I replied: "Well, right now I'm sort of like a Dinosaur Veterinarian: it's undoubtedly a skilled profession, it's just that there's not a lot of call for it anymore..." Heh. I know some ex-Batwing two-way guys in the same boat, so..eeeyeah. :) _____________________________________________________________ Get your own @redwall.net email address and much more at http://www.redwall.net/
