Missing the good old days of electronics

[JJB17463rdBombGroup]

Remember the times of 49 Mhz wireless landline phones with their bases. Those were a lot of fun eavesdropping on your neighbors conversations
when you knew all about your neighbor before ever meeting them in person.

Also that was the era of 1980's and 1990's with analog cellphones in which many 800 MHZ radio scanning sets could with ease be modified so that
the owners could technically (albeit illegally) listen in to cell phone users in the area.
If you have ever used a analog cell phone you never knew how many other people were actually listening in to your conversation.

Sadly a lot of fun was taken out when cell phones used the digital system and more complex encryption .
Lots of fun pranks could be pulled back in those days but I stuck with just knowing how to or just listening in to the 49 Mhz wireless phones

[gibo]

An uncle of mine in the 1960's had a pay phone booth outside his home. In those days the phone booths had a thick telephone directory inside them.

One night he could hear some young boys going through the phone book and phoning people with the surname Longbottom. They would phone each phone number from the book and say "Hello, is that the Longbottoms? This is the Shortarses here." They would then hang up laughing. It must have cost them some money after a while.

I apologise if there are any Longbottoms on these forums.

Cheers,

gibo