But there was, for a time, a meme about cellphones getting smaller and smaller, even with some comedians joking about swallowing your phone accidentally. Sure, go back to the 80’s and they were gargantuan. The “older is bigger” trope doesn’t hold water. I can hardly fit some of the new ones into a pocket comfortably. Especially when compared to Notes and similar “big-screen” “phones”. I dunno, every analog cellphone I ever owned from the late 90’s on from an Ericsson to a StarTac to even NexTel’s and crappy Kyocera’s have been significantly smaller in size than the average smartphone available today. It’s not even like they try to hide it anymore. The FCC hasn’t given a damn about the law or the greater good for a while now–they exist soley to fork over monopolies to big telecom and make free-market competition impossible. They’re usually more vigilant and trustworthy in that regard. They won’t do their job properly, so it’s on individual hackers and hams to make sure they’re being responsible with the technology. I also don’t think the FCC is worthy of respect. I don’t think the question of legality is always necessarily relevant. It’s of less concern than speeding or jaywalking, both morally or from a safety standpoint, plus both of those are illegal yet just about everyone does it flagrantly anyway. Illegal or legal, ethical or unethical–experimenting with this stuff isn’t hurting anyone or costing anybody business. Pretty sure it’s illegal to spoof phone numbers over VOIP to pull off massive automated phishing scams too, but that’s like 90% of phone traffic these days and the FCC won’t do a thing because telecom companies make money off that traffic, and the FCC is totally captured by the industry it’s supposed to regulate. Posted in Cellphone Hacks, Radio Hacks, Wireless Hacks Tagged 1G, analog, base station, cell phone, LimeSDR, sdr Post navigation We’ve previously reviewed the LimeSDR-Mini hardware, as well as covered its use in setting up DIY GSM networks. His software has specific options to use the LimeSDR and LimeSDR-Mini, but you should be able to use other devices with a bit of experimentation. This greatly simplifies the installation, and turns a whole bench full of radios and wires into something you can carry around in your pack if you were so inclined. If you want to take the easy way out, also explains how to replace the radios with a single SDR device. He even mentions that the popular BaoFeng handheld radios can be used in a pinch, though not all the protocols will work due to distortion in the radio. He explains that amateur radios are a viable option for most of the frequencies used, and that he had early success with modifying second-hand taxi radios. has put together exceptional documentation for this project, which starts with a walk through on how you can setup your DIY cell “tower” with traditional radios. You can go the old school route and do it with sound cards and physical radios, or you can fully embrace the 21st century and do it all through a Software Defined Radio (SDR) in either event, calls to the base station and even between multiple mobile devices is possible with relatively inexpensive hardware. His software allows the user to create a functioning analog base station for several retro phone networks used in Europe and the United States, such as AMPS, TACS, NMT, Radiocom, and C450. Of course these phones of a bygone era aren’t just impractical due to their monstrous size compared to modern gear, but because analog cell networks have long since gone the way of the floppy disk.īut thanks to the efforts of those antique cell phones may live again, even if it’s only within the radius of your local hackerspace. They aren’t used anymore, but it might only take a visit to a swap meet or flea market to get your hands on some of this vintage hardware. With the latest and greatest 5G cellular networks right around the corner, it can be difficult to believe that it wasn’t so long ago that cell phones relied on analog networks.
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