Maine may have had cell phones in the 50's (Portland: renting, home)

[RMoore007]

I found this 50's photo of my mom and dad visiting someplace on a river. Probably Maine somewhere. They are the ones to the far left. I think my mom is on a cell phone, but I can't tell. What do you think.





I could be wrong. About the time of this picture, at home we had a crank wall phone with a public line. Something else I noticed in many of their old photos is that people dressed up more when they went out in public. I think we've all relaxed with our public dress code a bit since those days.

[dmyankee]

I have a box full of mid 20th C, Associated Press Baseball photography I am going through, on my desk this weekend. Most of the men are dressed in ties and fedoras.

[Acadianlion]

No, no cell phones in the 1950's. The technology had not been invented to support that.

In the 1980's I had a mobile telephone in my car since I travelled around the state so much. It was a true, radio-telephone, and worked by line of site. There were several dozen antennae located primarily near large towns and along the Interstate from the New Hampshire border to Bangor, with huge gaps between the major towns as one traveled further and further from greater Portland.

The way it worked was that your telephone mounted in the car...it looked just like a telehpone and was the same size as a regular corded telephone...would transmit signals by radio to the antenna where the system would connect to a regular telephone line. The billing was horrendously expensive per minute, because you were making a long distance call and paying for the radio connection to a separate telephone service provider. In those days it meant that I could save hours of driving often by calling my office from the car, and sometimes could divert from my travel to service a client who needed something right then. Otherwise, I might not get the message for, say two hours, and be a whole day before I could take care of the problem with the client.

Was it cost effective? No. Not really. No more than owning and maintaining a Cessna aircraft to fly from Portland to Bangor and renting a car to see a client there.

But it sure did make things more fun and interesting as long as the cash flow supported the payments.

[Coaster]

Fascinating photo. Thanks for posting it. How certain are of the date? I ask because the young man facing the camera appears to be wearing wire-rim glasses that became popular in the late 1960s. Also, your Mom's skirt seems awfully short for the 1950s!

[RANGER.101ST]

the cell wasnt invented till 73 or74 the first cell was a motorola and it was big.like a foot long.and heavy 4 or 5 lbs.

[Northern Maine Land Man]

I believe that is Wyman Dam on the Kennebec River at Bingham. The dam is actually in Moscow, but everybody calls it Bingham.

[dmyankee]

I remember mobile phones from the '70s. They came with this unit as big as a truck battery.

[bignhfamily]

Originally Posted by dmyankee

I remember mobile phones from the '70s. They came with this unit as big as a truck battery.

Yeah, I can remember my grandfather having a BIG car mounted mobile phone. He worked for a Government Agency and traveled a lot. I used to think he was a spy! This was in the mid 70's.

My dad had a cell phone in the 80's. He was able to call us at home here in Northern NE while he was working (mostly between Texas and Southern CA). It did not work when he was home.

I remember the first cell phone call I ever made was on my Mum's newly purchased phone and it was after my graduation in 1988.

[RMoore007]

Originally Posted by Coaster

Fascinating photo. Thanks for posting it. How certain are of the date? I ask because the young man facing the camera appears to be wearing wire-rim glasses that became popular in the late 1960s. Also, your Mom's skirt seems awfully short for the 1950s!

Could be a 1960's photo. I didn't notice the skirt either. It was with other photos that gave me the impression that it was earlier.

Originally Posted by NMLM

I believe that is Wyman Dam on the Kennebec River at Bingham. The dam is actually in Moscow, but everybody calls it Bingham.

Thanks for the info. Didn't know where that was.

Originally Posted by ranger

the cell wasnt invented till 73 or74 the first cell was a motorola and it was big.like a foot long.and heavy 4 or 5 lbs.

My first cell phone was a 2 watt Motorola Transportable that weighed about 4-5 lbs. I remember taking it into a restaurant and thinking I was cool.

There were no cell phones then. No texting. No beepers either. How in the world did people get through the day?

[bringselpup]

I think your Mom has her finger stuck in her ear, was something there loud?