-=> Quoting Paul Williams to Roy Witt <=-
 RW> You've generated some interest here. I've just replaced the battery in
 RW>my Cobra 2-line portable phone and I'm charging up the batteries now.
 RW>I've noticed that when the base isn't connected to a land line, there's
 RW>no squelch action. 
I've always pretty-much known that you could turn portable phones into
radio tranceivers, except the question still remains for Cellphones.
Australia's analogue mobile phone network is closing in the year 2000, and
people are jumping over to digital everywhere. It sort of means you can
go into a mobile phone store and look in their bargain bins, and find
a phone, complete with 2 batteries, a charger and a headset for $1.
Some phones are even 50c! :-). Its a shame to see this technology go to
waste, and even now I'm trying to make some money by FedEx'ing them
to people in the US for $20US.. Still cheap, if they can make use of
them.
Its a bit unfair though, how the phones are coded. You need to take it
to a mobile phone dealer to change the frequency, etc of the phone..
If only you could change the crystal and modify the internal circutry
to transmit in the 440 area.. Then, it'd be useful.
 PW> As I mentioned to Jeff, a good chunk of the 49Mhz phones use the same
 PW> circuits as any other 49Mhz gear. The only difference is what
 PW> functions were used. Depending on the chip, all you have to do is
 PW> remove a fixed value resistor and replace it with a variable. 
How many Watts PEP do those portable phones TX? And how much gain do you
get from those telescopic antennas? I assume they only put out a few watts!
If you change the change the crystal to one for 50Mhz, replace the static
resistor with a variable type, and glue a little box on the bottom of it
with a small pre-amp and a small amplifier, and you've got yourself a
pretty neat 6-meter tranceiver! :-) .. for that Magic Band! (QST's
expressions are rubbing off on me! :-)
 PW> For the new stuff yeah, but for the 49Mhz gear anything even remotely
 PW> resembling a ctcss or pl circuit is going to be very rare.
Like I suggested, the CTCSS gear could be included in a small box mounted
on the phone. If you're gonna mount it in your car, how about using a small
box, mounting amps, preamps, CTCSS, whatever.. a 12V->3V (or whatever it
runs on) transformer, and a cigarette lighter socket onto it. Run the cord
up to the phone using low-loss OFC or something. Even better, put the
phone in the box, and make up a sepearate keyboard to mount on your dash,
and connect the mic and speaker to a headset.
As you can see, I'm getting carried away.. Which is why I'm off to the flea
market to see if I can find a portable phone! I'll let you know if I find
one.
73's de Michael.
... I always beleived ham came from pigs. What's this about Yaesu? A Pig?
--- Blue Wave/DOS v2.30 [NR]
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