The first communications device I ever owned was home-made.
I got the idea after reading about a bit of jolly japery in a Jennings book.
I was addicted to the stories of school fun that Jennings and his friends all had.
Such a far remove from my own school experiences.
When I bothered to attend.
Ahem.
Anyway.
Back to the tins.
On a positive slant, the two-baked-bean-tins-attached-with-a-bit-of-string device actually worked.
However, if one didn’t keep the string taut the speech quality dropped right off, down to the ‘Awah oojah inky bam’ level.
And, in keeping the string taut, one was by default limited to very short line-of-sight comms.
I had a go at semaphore too.
I used broken mirrors (don’t ask) to reflect light back and forth to the person which I was communicating.
And that’s a second drawback.
Living in a tremendously remote part of Wales, the person with whom I was communicating was, inevitably, either my very young brother, or my sister.
And their interest in communication devices was seldom on the same level as my own.
The first really big communication devices I got my hands on were provided by Her Majesty the Queen.
I had, placed at my disposal, antenna systems that were comprised of beams, dipoles, horns, random wires and even parabolics.
And I had transmitters (and receivers, obv) that were capable of operating across frequency ranges barely imaginable.
I could punch a signal from just about anywhere on the radio spectrum to practically anywhere on the planet (and several hundreds of metres below the surface of seas, or tens of thousands of metres above sea level).
I could use so many different forms of communication; I wasn’t limited to voice.
I even, once twice, accidentally, ahem, put out a carrier wave across the European CB Radio calling channel, from a top secret military establishment in Berlin.
I believe the Russians got blamed for that one.
And many years later, as a civilian, I got caught up in the CW McCall-inspired CB Radio boom (where American ‘rigs’ were illegally smuggled in to the CB Radio-free UK), and sought long-distance ‘skips’ to foreign parts (usually Italy, where everyone seemed to run CBs with enormous boosters connected to their radios).
I toyed with taking my Ham licence. but decided I’d rather spend all my money on something else, and then circumstances changed, and I ended up spending my money on just paying the bills.
The first mobile phone I had was given to me by my employer. It was this model:
It was a brick, frankly.
And in most of the geographical areas I worked, a brick might have had more use.
But my boss was emphatic that it was the way things were going, and at least it did allow me to skive off from the office more than I would normally have been able.
A week ago I spoke to my mobile phone service provider, to ask if I could get a handset for Daughter, and put it on my contract.
We had the necessary talk and I’m not too displeased with the result.
I was about to hang up when the person on the other end changed tack:
PotOE: I notice you’ve had your Samsung S3 for quite a few years.
Me: Three, I think.
PotOE: Have you considered changing it? I could probably get you a new phone for less than you’re currently paying.
Me: ……………?
PotOE: Would you be interested in the S4? I could see what we could do for you with one of those.
Me: Well. I have been looking at the HTC M8.
PotOE: Oh yes, they’re excellent. I have one of those myself. Well *taps away* based on what we’ve discussed, I could get you one of those, on your current tariff, for a combined price of £15/month.
Me: ……………!
PotOE: Excellent. I’ll get one sent out to you today. It’ll be with you tomorrow.
Well it wasn’t, obv. But only because I was in Bristol and the phone was delivered to my house.
But on Saturday I unboxed the HTC One M8:
After a bit of faffing, the phone was set up and working well.
I could send and receive texts to/from the other side of the settee.
And the personalised ringtones I’d imported all worked.
It’s a nice little handset.
I haven’t yet figured out how to do something more creative with the text alerts, but for now it does the kind of thing a mobile phone should do.
Viz:
- Make calls
- Receive calls
- Send texts
- Receive texts
- Enables me to play on the Internet
- Enables me to use SatNav
- Enables me to set up a range of email accounts
- Gives me access to my calendar
- Lets me read the news
- Enables me to do my banking
- Allows me to FTP from my handset
- Play Jelly Splash *sigh*
- Take photos
- Upload photos
- Download photos
- Watch videos
- Watch TV programmes
- etc
*reads the list again*
*sighs*
Whilst everyone else seemed to be into Just William, I too used to read Jennings. Marvelous stuff.
For a second there I read that your big transmitters and receivers were ‘powered’ by Her Majesty. Must get my eyes tested again.
That’s not a brick. My first mobile phone was a two-handed affair! But then, I’m older than you.
My first mobile was also a brick. Something like a field telephone, being a handset on a large battery which had it’s own carrying case. And bloody heavy it was too! But it got you tremendously good service when you went into shops as they thought only someone important would have a mobile phone.