Portable Phone circa 1955
Air Trails March 1955

Sending texts must have been a real challenge on this early portable phone. Aside from having to type out your message on a standard telephone keypad (oh, the humanity), the baud rate must have been snail-like. The article doesn't mention whether dropped calls were a big issue and whether there was a massive marketing plan with a bespectacled "Can You Hear Me now?" guy. I'm just kidding, of course. This news item appeared in a 1955 edition of Air Trails: Hobbies for Young Men. Before you laugh at the Portaphone's dipole antenna and carrying case, consider that it was only a little over two decades ago that Motorola debuted its famous M800 "Bag Phone" (user's manual).

From the magazine: "Portable two-way radio phone for use in homes, office buildings, construction jobs or farms, operating on "citizens band" designed by A. Fuller Dean of Chicago. Called Portaphone, set has a range of 8 to 12 miles in open spaces, 800 yards within steel buildings. Power supplied by dry cell battery earned in plastic bag."

Below is the Portaphone as pictured in the March 1955 edition of Air Trails: Hobbies for Young Men:

Portable Phone Circa 1955, Air Trails March 1955 - RF Cafe Website

Posted August 27, 2013

SATNow Satellite Industry Resources Database - RF Cafe Website

RF Cafe began life in 1996 as "RF Tools" in an AOL screen name web space totaling 2 MB. Its primary purpose was to provide me with ready access to commonly needed formulas and reference material while performing my work as an RF system and circuit design engineer. The World Wide Web (Internet) was largely an unknown entity at the time and bandwidth was a scarce commodity. Dial-up modems blazed along at 14.4 kbps while tying up your telephone line, and a lady's voice announced "You've Got Mail" when a new message arrived...