Improved Mobile Telephone Service (internal link) may be gone from the public switched telephone network but the system may still be working in private use. Are they any scanner buffs in the midwest who could tell us more? A reader reports:

Hi Tom,

Somewhere in Northwest Illinois, or possibly SE Iowa, an IMTS system is still operating. I have heard it. I haven't had enough time to find which city, although I have a few suspects. I think it is only used by the local telephone company for their own use.

IMTS is the only system that I've run into that marks the next/signalling channel with a 2000 cycle tone. That's what I heard. I did jump to the IMTS conclusion on my own, but it sure seems plausible.

I have run into a scanner buff closer to that area, he has said he was able to hear it and will check it out when he's travelling in near there. He knows IMTS, said he built a circuit to squelch his receiver when the 2000 was on.

I'll let you know if I find anything else.

Al Hajny, P.E.
WB9LIV
Milwaukee WI

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How is that possible? Check out this fascinating article that Mark van der Hoek forwarded to me:

http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=28995

I think this is quite the same with RF exposure. I tell people, if RF is such a hazard, why aren't the workers in that industry, civilian and military, people exposed to far higher rates than cell phone users, show higher rates of cancer than the general public? Wouldn't the Communications Workers of America raise an alarm? And what about the electrical industry? Ever heard their unions making a fuss about too much E.M.F.? No. But if there was a higher rate than the general populace, you know that those unions, and their lawyers, would let us know.

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I've often heard, "The keypad on my mobile is too small to do anything! How will anyone make it a useful product without a full size keyboard?" Well, that indeed is a challenging problem. Here's a fascinating solution, a virtual keyboard, projected by a laser so that you can type on almost any flat surface. Now all we need is a virtual screen, a laser projecter that would simulate. possibly with a hologram, a 17" monitor. Wouldn't that be cool?

From the BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/tw/2002/may08keyboard.shtml (external link) Link now dead, thanks, BBC!

"Introducing a keyboard that literally lets you type on your desktop. It uses a small diode laser and some special optics to project a keyboard onto any surface that's reasonably flat. In the same box is a special infrared system that detects the movements of the user's fingers across the projected keyboard and links it back to the computer. It can be linked to conventional PCs or hand-held computers and the manufacturers plan to connect it to mobile phones. They say that the virtual keyboard would be particularly useful in hospitals and other environments where conventional keyboards could collect dust. . . . (continues at the BBC link above)

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Yes, from 1914 to 1917 the Labs helped build the 55' yawl Elsie, a gift from Alexander Graham Bell to his daughter Elsie and son in law Gilbert Grosvenor. Now fully restored and updated, the boat cruises the beautiful waters of Bras d'Or Lakes of Cape Breton,.Nova Scotia. That's near Baddec where the Bells had their favorite home. The boat has a web site since it is available for charter. Wouldn't that be fun? Here's some information from the site:

"After three long years of restoration and eighty years after her launching, "Elsie" still reigns as Queen of the Bras d'Or Lakes.

"Built by Walter Pinaud at Bell Laboratories on Beinn Bhreagh and launched in 1917, the sleek 55' yawl is a striking example of the boat builder's art.

"The world renowned naval architect George Owen of M.I.T. using data collected by Bell, drew the lines especially for the wave and wind patterns typically encountered on the lakes. His interpretations were perfect. Elsie could not be better suited to her environment. Elsie is stiff and stable yet as fast and nimble as most modern cruisers/racers. In fact, Elsie was still winning races at Bras d'Or Yacht Club well into the 1980's. . . . http://www.baddeck.com/ElsieCharters/about.html (link now dead, use Google.com at top of page to search)

Class: C

Rig: yawl

Length: 54' LOA

Tonnage:

Built: Bell Boatyard, Baddeck, 1917

Crew:

Distinctive features: red sails, slim white hull, low varnished deckhouses

Comments: Built by Alexander Graham Bell as gift for son in law, longtime fixture on Bras d'Or Lakes, Cruising Club of America was founded onboard.

Name Origin: Alexander Graham Bell's daughter, Elsie. Sources: Cruising World, March/April, 1975; North American Yacht Registry, 1979

The photograph and information from this table is from this site:

http://museum.gov.ns.ca/mma/AtoZ/tallnotes.html

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Social history of party lines is here, good writing!

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Mark van der Hoek does it again!, outstanding advice on what to do if you think your property would be great for a cellular tower. Click here to read.

Memories, from a woman hacker and former telco employee who lived in Hawaii several years ago:

"Oahu was a bit tighter about hacking. I have great stories about dumpster diving out there, like the time my friend and I were swapping fence duties to get trash from the Punahou Central Office in the Kakaako district of Honolulu. (2054 Young street to be precise.) I was looking for GTD5 information (internal link); in fact I was obsessed with that switch because nobody knew much about EAX'es and I've always been an elitist ;) Anyway, while we were trashing there was, in front, a telco employee calmly sitting in his car, smoking and staring at us for two hours (Okay, there was a lot of trash, it was dark, it was New Years' Eve, and we were both just a bit drunk). So we got back to my apartment, found some numbers, called some people working at the switch and this guy comes on and says 'Aren't you one of those hackers?' to which I asked 'What's a hacker?,' and we proceeded to get into a discussion in which I vehemently replied that that was quite impossible, and that I couldn't be a hacker because there's no such thing as female hackers... But you probably had to be there to really get the joke . . ."

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I am trying to explain, in fifty words or less, the difference between the electrical and electronic eras. Arrgh. Oh, click on this external link, Nokia is getting closer to building a video phone:

http://www.nokia.com/phones/3650/

See the little camera lens on the back? Good for 640 by 480 resolution. Grainy but not bad for a mobile. You take pictures and then they are forwarded. This is not real time, interactive video-telephony. More like a phone and digital camera in one. Then, too, you have to be on one of the faster, far more expensive GPRS networks to send your picture. I like the handwheel approach.

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I'm trying to explain D.C. signals for my telephone history series. Take a look below to see if you can understand what I write:

Analog transmission in telephone working. At the top of the illustration we depict direct current as a flat line. D.C. is the steady and continuous current your telephone company provides to carry your conversation. The middle line shows what talking looks like. As in all things analog, it looks like a wave. The third line shows that when you talk the telephone impresses that analog wave on the direct current provided. Thus, your voice varies the telephone's electrical current. Click here for another diagram that complements this illustration. Comments? Corrections?

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Read about how Bell in fact invented the telephone. And get those urban myths, badly documented claims, big conspiracy against the little inventor, thoughts out of your head. Click here to view a new page at this site (internal link).

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Tom:

Just stumbled across your site searching for some history; its great! I enjoyed reading a few items about GTD-5 and Roseville Tel (internal link). I was part of the design team on GTD-5 from 1982 --1986. We cutover the first GTD-5 in Banning, California in 1982. I and 2 other engineers tested, commissioned, and cutover the first GTD-5 Remote Switch Unit. The base unit was in Savannah, MO with the RSU about 15 miles away in Helena, MO. We were there for about 5 months and I got damned good at driving the route between installations at high speed! One day we had been making excellent progress with testing going well when the remote just went dead. We could not talk to the remote from the base for nothing. I hoped in the rental car and drove the cable route out to the remote. About halfway there I found the farmer with his backhoe along side the road!

Roseville Tel was also a great company to work with. I spent time in their main C.O. doing field service on their ITT 1210 and then returned a couple years later to work on the GTD-5 in Citrus Heights with an RSU at Roseville Main.

Your site stirred up some great memories; thanks!!! If you want to see the next great C.O. switch, visit http://www.santera.com( external link).

Thanks, Tom

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Steve writes in, "I enjoyed reading your Mobile Telephone History. My own company, Xilex, was a 'pioneer in the industry' (they said) from circa 1980-1983. My units were the most sophisticated microprocessor-controlled mobile telephones of the day. Our units handled MTS, IMTS, AMTS, IPTS, DTMF, 2-tone, 5-tone, Secode Smart, and some others which I've long forgotten. Well, it was a long time ago. Anyway, thanks for the informative article. And speaking of tone controlled equipment devotees, I am now good friends with the infamous Captain Crunch."

I do different things today. A little work on the site, bill paying, work at my Church, and perhaps a swim in the Auburn River. We'll see. Mark van der Hoek submits the photo below as an example of a cell phone tower fire. I said nonsense, that this was Greece trying to control their Olympic costs by constructing an alternative Olympic torch. :-) Click on this link or the image itself to bring up a bigger picture.

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AMPS, or Advanced Mobile Phone Service, analog cellular, is scheduled to end in America in five years. The Federal Communications Commission in early August decided that cellular carriers would no longer be required to keep open a few analog channels for the now small number of non-digital phones. You can download the official F.C.C. document by clicking here. AMPS audio sounded great, many will miss it, but it took up too much bandwidth. Now we have digital wireless, bandwidth friendly, feature laden, but often with poor audio because of over compression. That's because the cellular carrier wants as many calls over the air as possible, all scrunched together, with voice quality now a small concern. AMPS, we will miss you.

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