Post by Dave on May 27, 2010 18:01:09 GMT
As I drove through Taunton at lunchtime today the streets were pretty packed and I noticed so many people both young and old had a mobile phoned glued to their ear hole. I starting thinking just how you would go about explaining to someone who had died over a 100 years ago and had come back from the dead, just what you were doing holding that thing up to your ear.
You might have got lucky and the returned dead person might just about understood what you had told them but if they really believed it that would be another matter altogether. It would be best anyway to just tell them you are talking to someone who might be hundreds of miles away and in real-time and stop just there, you would never get them to believe all the other things today’s smart phones are capable of.
As a young boy and living in one of the few homes that had a telephone installed, I was so fascinated by this devise, how could I hold something to my ear that had a microphone in one end and a speaker in the other end and then just start talking. My words I were speaking ending up going into a wire and coming out the other end somehow and I knew then that while I never wanted to know everything, I did need to know the basics of how anything worked.
That is one area Carol and I differ so much, all she wants to know is how to switch on the TV and change the channels, how the picture and sound gets there is of no interest to her what so ever. I did spend some time once boring her to tears explaining how the TV worked; I’m sure she just listened out of politeness and never took any of it in.
The phone as we know was a wired system and I suppose it was only ever going to be a matter of time that radio waves were used so that phones could be carried around and used almost anywhere, the problem with the early mobile phones were anyone who owned a good radio scanner could listen to your private phone calls due to the frequency’s that were being used back then.
In my early 20’s I was seriously into CB radio, not the local stuff where breakers would ask for a COPY and then maybe an EYEBALL, no I was only interested in long distance commutations and to do that I had to use a few bits of what was then considered illegal equipment.
The standard CB only had 4 watts output transmitting power and if you were lucky you might be able to talk with someone up to 25 miles away and as it was very popular then and so many people had CB’s the airways were packed and you would be lucky to take to someone only 10 miles away most times.
As I said I was not interested in all the local chat and I could be found up at Marine Drive on a Sunday morning at 3am, firstly I would take of the car CB aerial and replace it with a 25ft telescopic one before switching on my 500 watt burner. This was the piece of kit that was the naughty bit as it boosted my output dramatically.
I used to operate only on one channel and most knew where to find me; soon I would have ten or more on my channel from places like Guernsey, Wales, Portland and even further. When someone new came on the channel I would let them know who was also on the channel and let them give one a call out to try and see if they could hear each other and also speak to each other.
A group of us in Torbay set up our own post box account at the post office as one of the real joys was receiving cards from the people we did manage to copy; the cards were all specially made for or by the person and on the back of the card would be all the details such as signal strength etc.
Every now and then due to weather conditions a thing called SKIP would happen, it’s the same thing that effected those VHF TV’s we used to watch, you would be sat watching a TV program and then get some foreign voices coming through the speakers, I’m sure many will remember that happening.
All that was really happening was that the radio signal was not penetrating the atmosphere and instead just skipped along it, much like when you throw a flat stone across a pond seeing how many times you can get the stone to skip before it sinks. When the skip happened you could talk to people in Germany, Scotland and I got to talk with the USA on two occasions.
I also loved walkie talkie radios, while they only operated over a short distance, it was fun to hid away from you mates while still being able to talk to them, I suppose therefore it was only a matter of time before really complicated networks were set up that would use the same principles of walkie talkies, only allow the user to talk to someone anywhere in the world.
I so remember my very first mobile phone, it was heavy and with a small black and white screen and it had two functions only; one was as a phone and the other sending text messages. Soon camera’s were added to the phones and each new phone that came out had even more features, such things as music players, FM radio’s.
I marvel at the phones we now have today and just what they are able to do, to think I can sit in the van and check the forum, check my emails, even shop or move money from one bank account to another.
I love playing with the google maps, I just click the app and then click location and the phone connects to a number of satellites and a few seconds later my exact position is flashing away on the map. Then give it a post code or address and it turns into a sat nav complete with a nice lady telling me where I need to turn next.
I also like the way the phone connects all day to the mobile internet and as soon as it gets in range of my home network, switches to wi-fi and connects to my home network and so the question is where do mobile phones go next? And is there anything you think needs to be added to a mobile phone.
As we know there are now apps for nearly everything, even one for turning out the lights off at home from where ever you are and so it is hard to think what the next generation phones will have as extra features. There has to be some as technology never stands still for a second and anyway it’s the way they make you always want to change your phone to the very latest model as it will offer those new goodies.
As it is now we can talk from anywhere we are to anyone else in the world, never get lost as our phone can tell us where we are and the only down side might be for some is that others who may have reason to know, will know where you are as long as the phone is switched on. While I dislike all the CCTV’s around these days, I do not have a problem with anyone knowing where I am, as I will never ever be anywhere where I should not be.
I wonder if phones will become just that bit more personal with their owner, it might be the case they will know the owners medical conditions and will be able to constantly monitor the owner and know if they get ill or unwell and then get help if required. The phone would know its location and would be programmed with the numbers it would need to ring.
There is one further worry I do have mind you, we seem to be living more and more in a police state now in the UK and who knows what could be put into the phone to collect all sorts of information about us, its all a bit scary really if you think about it as after all the mobile phone was only really made in the beginning to be able to just talk with someone else.
You might have got lucky and the returned dead person might just about understood what you had told them but if they really believed it that would be another matter altogether. It would be best anyway to just tell them you are talking to someone who might be hundreds of miles away and in real-time and stop just there, you would never get them to believe all the other things today’s smart phones are capable of.
As a young boy and living in one of the few homes that had a telephone installed, I was so fascinated by this devise, how could I hold something to my ear that had a microphone in one end and a speaker in the other end and then just start talking. My words I were speaking ending up going into a wire and coming out the other end somehow and I knew then that while I never wanted to know everything, I did need to know the basics of how anything worked.
That is one area Carol and I differ so much, all she wants to know is how to switch on the TV and change the channels, how the picture and sound gets there is of no interest to her what so ever. I did spend some time once boring her to tears explaining how the TV worked; I’m sure she just listened out of politeness and never took any of it in.
The phone as we know was a wired system and I suppose it was only ever going to be a matter of time that radio waves were used so that phones could be carried around and used almost anywhere, the problem with the early mobile phones were anyone who owned a good radio scanner could listen to your private phone calls due to the frequency’s that were being used back then.
In my early 20’s I was seriously into CB radio, not the local stuff where breakers would ask for a COPY and then maybe an EYEBALL, no I was only interested in long distance commutations and to do that I had to use a few bits of what was then considered illegal equipment.
The standard CB only had 4 watts output transmitting power and if you were lucky you might be able to talk with someone up to 25 miles away and as it was very popular then and so many people had CB’s the airways were packed and you would be lucky to take to someone only 10 miles away most times.
As I said I was not interested in all the local chat and I could be found up at Marine Drive on a Sunday morning at 3am, firstly I would take of the car CB aerial and replace it with a 25ft telescopic one before switching on my 500 watt burner. This was the piece of kit that was the naughty bit as it boosted my output dramatically.
I used to operate only on one channel and most knew where to find me; soon I would have ten or more on my channel from places like Guernsey, Wales, Portland and even further. When someone new came on the channel I would let them know who was also on the channel and let them give one a call out to try and see if they could hear each other and also speak to each other.
A group of us in Torbay set up our own post box account at the post office as one of the real joys was receiving cards from the people we did manage to copy; the cards were all specially made for or by the person and on the back of the card would be all the details such as signal strength etc.
Every now and then due to weather conditions a thing called SKIP would happen, it’s the same thing that effected those VHF TV’s we used to watch, you would be sat watching a TV program and then get some foreign voices coming through the speakers, I’m sure many will remember that happening.
All that was really happening was that the radio signal was not penetrating the atmosphere and instead just skipped along it, much like when you throw a flat stone across a pond seeing how many times you can get the stone to skip before it sinks. When the skip happened you could talk to people in Germany, Scotland and I got to talk with the USA on two occasions.
I also loved walkie talkie radios, while they only operated over a short distance, it was fun to hid away from you mates while still being able to talk to them, I suppose therefore it was only a matter of time before really complicated networks were set up that would use the same principles of walkie talkies, only allow the user to talk to someone anywhere in the world.
I so remember my very first mobile phone, it was heavy and with a small black and white screen and it had two functions only; one was as a phone and the other sending text messages. Soon camera’s were added to the phones and each new phone that came out had even more features, such things as music players, FM radio’s.
I marvel at the phones we now have today and just what they are able to do, to think I can sit in the van and check the forum, check my emails, even shop or move money from one bank account to another.
I love playing with the google maps, I just click the app and then click location and the phone connects to a number of satellites and a few seconds later my exact position is flashing away on the map. Then give it a post code or address and it turns into a sat nav complete with a nice lady telling me where I need to turn next.
I also like the way the phone connects all day to the mobile internet and as soon as it gets in range of my home network, switches to wi-fi and connects to my home network and so the question is where do mobile phones go next? And is there anything you think needs to be added to a mobile phone.
As we know there are now apps for nearly everything, even one for turning out the lights off at home from where ever you are and so it is hard to think what the next generation phones will have as extra features. There has to be some as technology never stands still for a second and anyway it’s the way they make you always want to change your phone to the very latest model as it will offer those new goodies.
As it is now we can talk from anywhere we are to anyone else in the world, never get lost as our phone can tell us where we are and the only down side might be for some is that others who may have reason to know, will know where you are as long as the phone is switched on. While I dislike all the CCTV’s around these days, I do not have a problem with anyone knowing where I am, as I will never ever be anywhere where I should not be.
I wonder if phones will become just that bit more personal with their owner, it might be the case they will know the owners medical conditions and will be able to constantly monitor the owner and know if they get ill or unwell and then get help if required. The phone would know its location and would be programmed with the numbers it would need to ring.
There is one further worry I do have mind you, we seem to be living more and more in a police state now in the UK and who knows what could be put into the phone to collect all sorts of information about us, its all a bit scary really if you think about it as after all the mobile phone was only really made in the beginning to be able to just talk with someone else.
