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rinso

rinso

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Jul 5, 2005
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Meridian Idaho
I'm going to list some old product names, terms, types and acronyms. Let's see if you can tell me to what industry they belong. (It was also my field of work I started out in, way back then)

Secode 2805, Pulsar, MastrPro, IMTS, CTCSS, Mocom 70, Reach, Two-Tone Sequential, Baseband patch, RCC, Progress Line, Amcor, Glenayre 1200.

There, that should be enough. And yes, I was (and still am) a total nerd.
 
Did you work for a phone company?

I believe IMTS and CTCSS were signaling systems used beteween telephone switches. "Two-tone sequential" sounds like some kind of signaling system too.
 
Pulsar I know, because I owned one! It was a two-door Nissan model in the mid-80s.

IIRC, Amcor was an Israeli manufacturer of refrigerators.
 
MasterPro is some kinda cheapo brank of lawn mower, wed wacker and such around here, Progreess line has something to do with one being in therapy and how well they are recovering, Baseband patch, is that not something base ball players take and get in trouble for???
Mocom, i saw that on some ones two way radio the other day

In all seriousness i think its got to do with communications
 
You didn't say this wasn't an open book test. I only Googled 3 items and they all seem to be radio dispatching equipment or work in conjunction with it. So did you work a police desk or for a cab or service company or something similar, or for a designer/manufacturer of these things?
 
I started my career in the newly-formed industry of mobile telephone,paging, and 2-way radio. Cellular phones would be years away. And yes, this little sissy used to climb hundreds of feet up radio towers, and most of my work was outside on mountain-top communications sites. (sounds more butch than it was) Here's what the stuff meant:

Secode 2805 - Selective Coding Device that transmitted and decoded a 2805 Hertz tone that was interrupted at a dial pulse rate. It was the non-telephone company signalling standard for mobile telephones.

Pulsar- A Motorola mobile telephone product. It had a huge heavy unit that was installed in the trunk, and a very stylish telephone control head that was installed in the front seat.

MastrPro General Electric's two way radio base station transceiver. The transmitter section was a hybrid type, having a combination of solid state and vacuum tube components.

IMTS-Improved Mobile Telephone System A fully automatic analog mobile telephone signalling format.

CTCSS-Continuous Tone-Coded Selective Squelch A sub-audible tone format that allowed users to share a channel without hearing other user's conversations.

Mocom 70 - The first, all solid-state two way radio produced by Motorola.
Reach & Two tone sequential signalling. A standard of selectively activating or signalling a single mobile unit that shares a channel with other units. If you remember the TV show Emergency, you will hear what two-tone sequetial format sounds like when the fire station gets alerted. It would be the standard used for voice pagers for years.

RCC-Radio Common Carrier The designation the FCC uses to refer to any mobile telephone company, including today's cellular companies.

Progress Line-General Electric's first tube-type 2-way radio offering.

Amcor-The Amcor 2003A was the first computerized switch that processed direct dial one-way beeper or paging services.

Glenayre 1200-A Canadian Company that built a highly sophisticated (for its time) IMTS mobile telephone switch. Its claim to fame is audio quality that has yet to be surpassed, even by todays cellular systems.

Hello??? Hello??? Is anyone really awake after reading all this? Pretty boring stuff, huh?
 
LOL
Hey I got one right... I did see a MoCom Radio.. It was old and used as a display piece at Verizon Wireless store

Come to think of it, they didn't have mobile phones on the east cost (atlanta area) in the mid 80's did they? If so would the cost have been around $2000 installed for one?? Hmmmm.. Lemme look for that pic.. Some one had a new 87 Taurus LX we knew that had a mobile phone installed in a fashion as described.. But this would have been in the WNC mtns and he travled for many years between there and atlanta.. That poor taurus had 280K when got his 1999 Taurus wagon
 
LOL
Hey I got one right... I did see a MoCom Radio.. It was old and used as a display piece at Verizon Wireless store

Come to think of it, they didn't have mobile phones on the east cost (atlanta area) in the mid 80's did they? If so would the cost have been around $2000 installed for one?? Hmmmm.. Lemme look for that pic.. Some one had a new 87 Taurus LX we knew that had a mobile phone installed in a fashion as described..
 
Mobile Telephone systems NOT owned and opeartated by AT&T became a reality in 1968. AT&T lost their suit against a small two-way radio company that manually interconnected public switched telephone network phone calls, to two-way radio systems. Not only did AT&T lose the case, they were forced to allow interconnection to their networks to private qualifying companies.

That landmark case was the Carterphone decision and it marked the beginning of the end of the monopoly AT&T held on all telephone services. It resulted in the creation of the Radio Common Carrier industry. Cellular actually wouldn't start to appear until 1983. And yes, early radiophones were very expensive, around 2000 bucks.

Most of those systems employed telephone operators to manually connect the calls, you didn't dial your own number. If you remember the old television detective show Cannon with William Conrad, Detective Cannon was always talking on his mobile telephone, giving phone numbers to the mobile operator to dial and connect. (I think he ordered a lot of pizzas over it.)
 
Not at all boring.

I remember that as a kid I thought TV shows and movies which featured Car Phones were extremely cool.

A local restaurateur had a Rolls-Royce limousine in the early 1970s with a telephone in the back. I must have been about 12 when he showed it to me and my dad (who knew him somehow). Sitting back there in the white-leather-upholstered passenger compartment with a telephone under the armrest made quite an impression.

The owner of the company at my first full-time job had a Car Phone which was no longer used, and which had been removed from his car. I think it was a Motorola. That was in the early 1980s, and by that time the company was large enough that he no longer needed to be in close contact at all times.

I also remember pagers going from being huge, ungainly things that were of limited use to being small and versatile (and cheap) to being pretty much entirely rendered useless by cheap cell phones.

Still, I prefer wires to wireless. If nothing else, the audio quality is so much better.

And land lines mean that you are less likely to annoy random strangers in public with your inane conversations and annoying ringtones.

-kevin
 
not at all boring, neat!

I think your story was interesting - so much has changed over the last few years and decades...more folks ought to play the quiz game with us.
Loved your "butch" work description. More, please!
 
Kevin, You are correct with your wired/wireless comment. No wireless celluar system has the voice quality of wired. (Or of analog non-cellular mobile telephone for that matter)

Keven, I have been so fortunate to be able to work on the mountain tops of our Western Forests. I decided to go into sales/administration when I no longer looked sexy in my tool-belt and tower climbing boots. ;o) I'll post a picture of a communication site. Most around here are breathtaking.
 

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