Anyone remember a type of illegal mobile phone in the 90's where create a local connection to your home's landline?

Forums › New Zealand Mobile and Wireless › Anyone remember a type of illegal mobile phone in the 90's where create a local connection to your home's landline?

turtleattacks

918 posts

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#288561 8-Jul-2021 13:45

I vaguely remember my parent's friends having this by smuggling it from overseas.

How it works was that you attach a special antenna to your landline and place it somewhere on the roof.

In your car, there's also a hub/receiver where it can create a connection to this local network.

Lastly, the mobile phone you carry around makes a connection to your car's hub.

Anyone remember this? I can't seem to find any information on this.

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Goosey

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#2741157 8-Jul-2021 13:57

Are you confusing “mobile telephone” aka “RT” as this?
mobile radio was able to dial calls thru the PSTN (as you describe)…

turtleattacks

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#2741158 8-Jul-2021 13:59

Goosey:

Are you confusing “mobile telephone” aka “RT” as this?
mobile radio was able to dial calls thru the PSTN (as you describe)…

I guess it's a type of mobile radio but I remember it looked like a phone and I remember it being illegal at the time due to the frequency it uses.

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Varkk

643 posts

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#2741168 8-Jul-2021 14:36

Probably was illegal because you need to be licensed for whatever slice of the radio spectrum you are using. It is probable if they imported it on the sly from overseas they didn't have the appropriate licensing etc.

tripper1000

1617 posts

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#2741173 8-Jul-2021 15:00

Nope.

But I remember my father telling me that this was how a cell phone worked and me being very sceptical. Turned out my scepticism was well founded.

I do remember cordless phones like the Panasonic flip phone being reputed as having a 1200 meter range and you could take it to the local shops - in theory. Again, while they were pretty good for a cordless, they weren't that good.

Radio gear that had the kind of power needed to do what you describe was expensive in the 90's, far more so than now. A phone like that, if it existed, would have had a price tag well north of $1k and needed professional installation in your car, so not the kind of thing you'd likely pick up at Radio Shack in the mall in Singapore or Sydney.

Edit: Found a pics of the Panasonic - it was a KX-T3000R