I Am Calling You

I Am Calling You was Originally Posted on January 24, 2012 by lavarock

I really like the movie “Bagdad Cafe” because it was not what I expected, yet was a fun ride. The actress, CCH Pounder went on to have a very nice career. Her fellow actor, Jack Palance also had a few films he is know for!

The theme song in the movie is “Calling You” and was nominated for an Oscar. Here is a link to the haunting song.

Decades ago, before cell phones were the norm, I had a phone in my car. It was also free to make calls. It involved Ham (Amateur) Radio.

Hams have always been at the forefront of technology, whether relaying telephone calls by radio or building satellites that hover over the earth. The first public access satellite made available to any licensed individual in any country, was a Ham satellite.

I mention this because on TV today, a show had a 911 operator answer a call and the operator knew who was calling and from where. That was not always the case. We hams used to call 911 and say “This is a Ham Radio Operator calling from my car. If you need it, I will give you a callback number to contact me in the future. You cannot call me back on this number I am using now.”

We had a good relationship with 911, the police, other public service agencies and the Civil Defense organizations.

Once a month we would utilize Civil Defense equipment to peform a “net” or network where Hams would check in with the network contoller and pass traffic or information. This helped us train for emergencies where we would offer our training to help.

Once a year, many Hams get together to practice similar communications on what we call “Field Day”. Oftentimes Hams gather in a field or under adverse conditions to get points for contacts and use of alternative energy and equipment use. The people with the most points wins

One year my group quickly erected antenna poles, which were two vertical extension ladders with a wire strung between them. We also launched a very thin and light wire antenna by filling trash bags with helium and allowing it to hover over us. We quickly lowered this after getting our points so that we would not attract lightning!

So how did our old mobile phone system work? Quite well thank you! Without going into technical details. I talk into a mike and a radio on the hill hears me. Their speaker is connected to the mouthpiece of a telephone. The earpiece of that phone goes to the mike of a transmitter on the hill which send a signal I hear on my receiver. Since we used touchtones, we could route those from my radio into the mouthpiece of the phone on the hill and it would dial for us. Yes, if you hold your home phone mouthpiece up t othe TV speaker, it may dial a number you hear punched in on a TV show.

Since the phone line on the hill is owned by the radio club, it would not show any of my own information. Also, dialing that number may or may not cause it to answer. It is illegal to set up a system wherby a non-licnsed person can access a Ham transmitter such as randomly dialing a telephone number and having a radio transmitter transmit anything. Generally, the telephone line would answer and listen for a secret code from a Ham member who could then access functions on the remote equiment.

So why would we spend all this time and effort to build things like this? because we CAN! Where do you think the idea for cellphone came from?

Actually they were in use before Hams, and if you think Hams have great ideas, you have not investigated the famous actress Hedy Lamarr!