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Old 29th Aug 2019, 2:43 pm   #45
G6Tanuki
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Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: Wiltshire, UK.
Posts: 13,953
Default Re: My first mobile phone (1992)

I remember the first "on-glass" cellphone antennas from the 80s - they only ever seemed to stay attached for a few months. At first we thought people were driving their cars through car-washes with the screw-on antenna-bit still fitted, but then when it happened to me (and I'd taken all the antennas off the car including the cellular one) we realised it was a more-pervasive problem. Some drivers were needing the antenna replaced every month or so particularly in winter when they were putting their car through a wash several times a week.

As time moved on the on-glass antennas tended to stay attached - whether this was because of better glues or a move away from the original long(ish) multi-element collinear antennas to shorter stubby 1/4-waves I don't know.
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