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Ron Attwood

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On 6/9/2020 at 2:13 PM, n4gix said:

Funny you should mention that. My very first computer was a Commodore DX-64. While I bought it primarily to use at my GE Service Station (two-radio shop), I spent many hours playing with Flight Simulator II on it! That 5 inch color screen was awesome! 👴

You worked at a GE shop? About the same time frame (early 80s), I was between aviation jobs, and spent 4 years working at a Motorola MSS. We were always on pretty good terms with the cross-town GE shop, even though we were competitors. We did underbid them for the maintenance contract for several local sheriff’s department systems that were GE-equipped. I always felt that the GE Mastr II base/repeater was a much better design than Motorola’s Micor base, but nothing could beat the 60’s-70’s vintage Motorola Motrac! At the time we still had a lot of local fire departments still using late 50’s vintage Motorola T-41 all-vacuum tube low band mobile units.


Jim Barrett

Licensed Airframe & Powerplant Mechanic, Avionics, Electrical & Air Data Systems Specialist. Qualified on: Falcon 900, CRJ-200, Dornier 328-100, Hawker 850XP and 1000, Lear 35, 45, 55 and 60, Gulfstream IV and 550, Embraer 135, Beech Premiere and 400A, MD-80.

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11 hours ago, JRBarrett said:

You worked at a GE shop? 

I owned the GESS. When I acquired ownership it was located in Kingsville, TX and had existing contracts with the King Ranch (world's largest cattle ranch), Kleberg County, and the city of Kingsville. Within six years it had expanded to branch offices in Corpus Christi and Brownsville, Texas. Eventually we covered all of the lower Rio Grande Valley, providing LMR and "Ranch Telephone" service to nearly all of the isolated ranches where land line service was unavailable without paying huge dollars for miles and miles of copper wire!

I developed a partnership with an EF Johnson dealer in Corpus Christi and the King Ranch. Together we put up five channel trunking systems which allowed for wide-area dispatch and mobile phone service for subscribers. These were the days when cellular service was extremely limited, so having a trunking system that provided a nearly 100 mile radius of coverage per tower site was very appealing to both the King Ranch and Armstrong Ranch, as well as numerous oil field companies was very appealing!

Alas, sometimes good things come to an end, and the oil crisis eventually resulted in more uninstalls than installs. Having read the tea leaves, I cashed out and sold my part of the business to my partners and left the South Texas area entirely,

My very first 'summer job' in the mid-sixties was working for an MSS in Arlington, VA installing mobile radios. Many of those were truly "antiques" using dynamotors for power supplies. Heavens, were those things heavy and a massive PITA to install!


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2 hours ago, n4gix said:

I owned the GESS. When I acquired ownership it was located in Kingsville, TX and had existing contracts with the King Ranch (world's largest cattle ranch), Kleberg County, and the city of Kingsville. Within six years it had expanded to branch offices in Corpus Christi and Brownsville, Texas. Eventually we covered all of the lower Rio Grande Valley, providing LMR and "Ranch Telephone" service to nearly all of the isolated ranches where land line service was unavailable without paying huge dollars for miles and miles of copper wire!

I developed a partnership with an EF Johnson dealer in Corpus Christi and the King Ranch. Together we put up five channel trunking systems which allowed for wide-area dispatch and mobile phone service for subscribers. These were the days when cellular service was extremely limited, so having a trunking system that provided a nearly 100 mile radius of coverage per tower site was very appealing to both the King Ranch and Armstrong Ranch, as well as numerous oil field companies was very appealing!

Alas, sometimes good things come to an end, and the oil crisis eventually resulted in more uninstalls than installs. Having read the tea leaves, I cashed out and sold my part of the business to my partners and left the South Texas area entirely,

My very first 'summer job' in the mid-sixties was working for an MSS in Arlington, VA installing mobile radios. Many of those were truly "antiques" using dynamotors for power supplies. Heavens, were those things heavy and a massive PITA to install!

Brings back a lot of memories. We had the contract for the PSP (Pennsylvania State Police) in two counties just south of the border. Back then they used an analog system. Now they are using encrypted digital and cannot be monitored by the public. The NYSP system locally is still analog, and basically no different than it was 30 years ago, though I would assume the base and mobile units are using more modern technology. The local sheriffs’ systems still use the same frequencies and repeater sites as back in the day, but have been standard P25 digital for quite a few years. 

“Two way” radio is probably pretty passé for small businesses in the modern mobile phone era. There are no community repeaters left locally. Our main cab company in town is still radio dispatched, but they use DMR instead of analog.

Of course, mobile radio is still the order of the day for law enforcement, fire departments, public utilities, EMS etc.

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Jim Barrett

Licensed Airframe & Powerplant Mechanic, Avionics, Electrical & Air Data Systems Specialist. Qualified on: Falcon 900, CRJ-200, Dornier 328-100, Hawker 850XP and 1000, Lear 35, 45, 55 and 60, Gulfstream IV and 550, Embraer 135, Beech Premiere and 400A, MD-80.

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