ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area Cellphone?

I still carry a pager. I also carry a cell phone but nobody has the number. I'm always on-call and if they can get me by cell, that's so convenient for them that I get stupid question calls all night and all weekend.

But the pager's inconvenient for them, I call back on my cell in 15 or 20 minutes and that's just inconvenient enough that they'd rather solve the problem themselves than wait 20 minutes wondering when I'm gonna call.

I went cell phone shopping a year ago. I wanted a durable, one color(not pink or yellow), no frills phone. I don't want a camera, don't need a color display, don't use my cell phone to schedule meetings or play video games. I don't want it to flash when it rings or play any songs by Michael Jackson.

Turns out nobody makes a phone that's just for making phone calls.

The great thing about cell phones is you can always turn them off. For me, an after hours contact number (where required to be given) is always a cell number to all but the most trusted and closest.

m'guy,
I hear you there!.
This phone I've got at the moment, I can't even get it to ring like a normal telephone, you have to have some poor electronic rendition of Flight of the Bumblebee (and that's about the best of the lot!).
I think that cellphones are generally made for the younger generations, these days, what with all these add-on features and the smaller sized phones. (My God, I sound like Abe Simpson )
What's next, the in-ear phone?.

I have the simplest Nokia phone that I could find,and I still don't know what all the buttons are for. I leave it in the truck and check it 2 or 3 times a day to see who's called. If I carry it around,some days I would'nt get any work done. Sometimes I do take it inside the house or job I'm at,but I don't answer it until I check the caller I.D.

Russell

Russell,
that's the reason we have children or grandchildren.

Roger

You're right Roger.And it's not just cellphones.Gas pumps,atm's,automated phone systems(press one if by land and 2 if by sea),computers. Occaisionally,I hear the term "Old fart" even.

I also need help turning on the new TV/dvd system my son bought us for our anniversary.

I'm beginning to understand why my 80 yr.old mother feels overwhelmed.

Russell

Russell, this is bringing a tear to my eye.
I have no tatoos but maybe I should get one saying "OLD FART", we could all get one and be a brothersisterhood. Just kidding, we already have that here.

Roger

Forgive me—I gotta’ go retro for a moment. At the 1979 or ’80 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, a rep was showing the original 3-watt Motorola 800MHz/AMPS “brick” phones. He was mad because he’d been promised that LV would have limited cellular coverage by showtime. At that time I think there were 6 US cities that had cellular service on an experimental basis, with regular coverage in LA/NYC. He was fairly excited that ‘Advanced Mobile Phone Service’ {the original cellular} was going to outpace IMTS [The more traditional ‘Improved Mobile Telephone Service’—the briefcase-sized/mounted-on-the-driveshaft-hump sets] that had the same sized “G” handset that deskphones used. {Some were rotary dial too.}

IIRC, the brick phone had something like 20 minutes of talk time between overnight charges and the most local of calls were something like 79¢/minute.

Bjarney,
I've never seen a cellphone with a dial on it!.
Imagine the kiddies today, trying to text-message on one of those.

These are the {pre-cellular} IMTS sets I remember…
http://www.privateline.com/PCS/mobilephonepictures.htm {Intereting site.}



http://www.privateline.com/IMTS/briefcasephotos.htm