[Motorola] Car Phones of the 1970's

[Mike Clarson]

Geoff:

When I started at Motorola in 1972, NJ Bell was all IMTS on VHF in North
Jersey (Newark) and were just getting on UHF with all IMTS. I do not believe
manual was available. There was also the Hillsboro and Montogomery telephone
company in Belle Meade, NJ which had one VHF IMTS channel and they used a
Kellogg terminal supplied by Motorola. We serviced it all. In the early to
mid eighties, the Cherry Hill Telephone company (actually an RCC) set up
IMTS operations on the Jersey Shore on the VHF telco channels. Terminals
were made by an outfit in Mississippi; name escapes me, EF Johnson
transmitters. It was all gone in the early 90's. The BOC's sold their
channels to paging operators.  Most of the IMTS phones sold in this area had
the FACTS head with LED channel readout. It was programmable for any
Motorola phone, VHF, UHF, Big Boxes or Pulsar. I also remember getting boxes
and boxes of "sup" boards from all over (including Plainview). They weren't
that complicated, just confusing. They were 4 layer boards, had multiple
"ground" references, several operating voltages and, one often used an
analog meter to look at logoc levels. No, not TTL levels. A zero might
be -0.7 volts and a One might be -0.5 volts. Very confusing.--Mike, WV2ZOW