Not a Nokia but a Nok-off.

I worked for Nokia at the time these must have came out. These are obviously counterfeit, but Nokia *actually* considered real products that could work as walkie-talkies on the ISM/GMRS bands. The key issues were performance, licensing and business model. People expected internal antennas even in the early 2000, which is not playing well with the 70cm bands these would be most likely to operate in. The licensing was and is hard, as millions of PTT capable phones could not only swamp a band and render it useless, but unlike mobile phones, which only transmit on a band when a permitted cellular network allows them, these would transmit when the PTT button is pressed and would be illegal in many places. And thirdly, the mobile phone operators didn’t want to take complaints from users who didn’t understand that some communication goes through the cellular network and some goes direct. PoC (push to talk over cellular) was introduced instead.

Can we please get a teardown, at least of the base unit? There's got to be some really dodgy electronics inside!

The phone held by the girl on the box is an old Scandinavian mobile phone used in the old NMT450 network, and the model is Mobira MD59. Fun trivia is that there were eprom images that could be replaced in the phone to turn it into a 70cm ham radio.

A long LONG time ago I had an actual ""Car Phone" - the first generation cellular type, made by Motorola. I had it moved to my new car from the old and the installer said they had never seen one so big - a massive box under the passenger seat. There was no compatible service in France, but on holiday in Normandy, I found that I could use cells in the Channel Islands while on the Cotentin peninsula about 20 miles away. When I moved across to the D-Day beaches, I was using cells on the Isle of Wight - NINETY MILES away!

Woah, VOR gives airplanes a way of flying a particular radial and DME gives distance. You do NOT want to mess with those.

That area of Dubai still has tons of dodgy stuff for sale. The best place is knaif. What's especially surprising is that handhelds etc are banned there, so back in the early 2000s everything was heavily controlled.

Real interesting. As a teenager I added an external ground plane antenna to my 49mhz phone do I could carry the handset on my bicycle around town.

Vids a banger. I think I had a 6150 as a mobile.

I saw some units that a friend who sold bootleg electronics in Ohio back in the 80's and 90's before he died. He had some units that were better made with large heatsinks that operated on 900 with a vertical collinear antenna. These units we were able to make 10 miles with an antenna on the roof of the car. It was like a bag phone and then the base. These were very illegal and fairly high power. He lived in a trailer so it was like a faraday cage from the antenna pumping out near microwave and many watts. He sold a bunch of these units including his demo. Some time later the FCC came sniffing around looking for him and the phones but he claimed he did not have them or know what they were talking about. They told him that they caught a guy using one and he claimed he bought it from my friend. I told him to lay low and don't import any more. It was one of the craziest things I ever saw. Units could be bought in 900 or 450 or 300 mhz ranges and the frequency could be set with dip switches. Nice find on this set. Its a similar much lower cost version of those original ones I saw back in the late 80's. Loved that video. I had forgotten this stuff and was delighted you discovered it.

Such an odd thing! It would be really interesting to see your frequency measurements or a look inside the cases. Thanks for the very interesting video and keep up your great work!

I've still got a working 6310i I went through most of the 5 and 6 series phones in the late '90s and early '00s.

Excellent work removing the antennas and limiting any broadcast range prior to testing... 👍 I would have hated to hear that the channel members were scrambling to bail you out of jail after the "radio police" came skidding up to your place with detector equipment and areials protruding from some official looking government van. Don't get me wrong: I think we would have posted bail and had you back home in record time, but I know government agencies can be overzealous in their day to day enforcement sometimes. Reminds me of the Monty Python skit about the cat detector Van. 😂

The girl looks frustrated on the box. 😂

According to a friend of mine who was fighting in the middle east back in 05-07 these long range cordless home phones are very common over there especially since they are far more lax with their frequencys over there

You've uncovered a spy cell 🕵️‍♂️

Interesting indeed. When I first saw the 275/475MHz labels, I first thought about what they could interfere with - since the latter of the two is close to the bottom of the current DTV band. Then when you said about 146MHz, I thought it would be close to both FM and DAB services, which may cause interference if the signal is strong enough or the modulator was poor. I didn't know about what was on 115.350MHz but I certainly didn't know it was to do with UK airport communications and the like!

I had bought some very similar looking handsets in the early 2000'S, they had a range of about 10km. They were not marked Nokia but looked the same

They did use to sell cordless phones (not Nokia branded though) with similar long range capabilities in the 1980's in Japan. I remember my uncle coming back from one of the many annual trips he went on there each year and telling us that you could walk into an electronics store and buy them off the shelf, but they were considered illegal in the United States.

the IR port on the 6150 was on the top of the handset - seen at 4:14 the semi circle black piece at 4:06 was just a little piece of trim, that could be taken off, but there was nothing behind it. I suspect there may have been a plan to make different ones to customise the phone with, but I don't think there was ever anything official. I still have one somewhere, and after buying a new battery for it a few years ago, it still worked... With an EE sim it showed one2one on the screen .

Fascinating, Lewis, and what an odd setup! It's hard to imagine these things ever worked, even wherever they might have been legal. I suppose people will sell anything, cheers!

Great video! That Nokia mobile phone form factor was popular (considered sophisticated) in the Middle East around that time. Dubai is interesting....remember seeing an Airband handheld transceiver on sale in Dubai duty free back in the day (icom if I remember correctly)..and that was one of two/three radios on display, the others being Japanese broadcast receivers!

Cool video. Thanks!

This actually looks like a knock off of the Senao SN-6610. If you look into super long range cordless phones, it was Senao who made the majority of them. They were marketed towards 3rd world countries that needed it. PM me if you want more info. Cheers!

Good that you got them off the market!

Thanks for your sharing

0:58 Anglia ITV certainly had a good few frequency options 🤣 All the ITV mergers and technology improvements must have saved an absolute fortune 😊

That was very interesting! Thanks.👍👍👍

yesss drum and bass outro, subsccribed

thing is, everything that is produced needs a market to sell on. the basic idea behind this is the million dollar question. it would fit into a middle eastern scenario, groups wanting to disturb or monitor aviation and military frequencies. or set up own short range communications with harmless nokia knockoffs.

4:14 ah, the hallmark of an authentic, quality Nokia product!

Crazy piece of kit. I wonder how many were made and are in use today.

Awesome! I'd love to have one!

This was for areas/countrys that didnt have cell phone service and wouldnt be getting it anytime soon back then. So you could walk around your village and shiw off that u had a cell phone....and it worked

back in the early 90s you could get a long range cordless that would do 5 miles. base unit with two large antenna and a long telescopic on the chunky handset... much beloved by farmers

Interesting mate, thanks

Forget Delboy's dodgy 'statellite' dish... you could quite _literally_ land planes with this!!

Man, here in Texas we wouldn't think twice about firing these things up.

I wonder how the creators of these came up with *that* frequency. How likely is it someone picks the worst possible frequency *by accident*? If they were operating on the advertised qrgs they might even get the advertised range via some mil UHF sat. ;)

Surely you can row into the North Sea and do pirate-like activity and never get caught.

Good find, and a bargain for a “cordless” phone collectible for the display shelf.

Cool video bro 💪👍🏻 Could you make a video about the German numbers station G15/G16 operated by the BND

Thank you brother, going to try put this on and relax for some sleep. This channel really does help as it brings me back down to earth at times. Like it's been said before radio is king, analogue at that. Emf is a thing for sure

Most likely it is a Chinese piece of art)

Thank you

Nokia wasn't made in Japan back then but in Finland.

I want those, haha I missed out on the old 2 mile distance phones.

You squeezed those dry for all the intel. 👍

Great memories !

It's stuff like this which makes your channel a perennial favourite Lewis. Well bought, well-described and well-presented. I've come across some egregious fakes in the past but this taking of Nokia's once proud name in vain really is at another level isn't it..?(!)

a video with them in action would be superb

A small faraday cage would be an answer to testing them. Wouls love to see you work out the actual specs ^^

Quality Lewis

These "long range cordless phones" used to be a thing here in the Philippines. Sellers advertised it as an alternative to expensive cellular calls back then.

As a kid my dream was to make a long range cordless phone

i wonder if they were made to resemble common nokias for...other reasons.. the mena ebay price offers a clue who would want stuff like this in 2023

Those usually worked in 256mhz base and 384mhz headset freq, 40 channels, where very popular in eastern Europe/Russia in the late 90s when cellular service was still extremely expensive.

I had several Nokias back in the day. I believe they were mostly of the 6161i style which had the flip down lid covering the buttons that would also answer and hang up. Nokia and Motorola owned the market from the early 90's through the early 2000's.

Wow! This is so strange, someone gave me one of these kits a few years ago and it looked identical! Even down to the receipt in the box from Dubai. Someone must've imported a job lot of them at some point in the north of England!

I got a cheap 2.4ghz walkie talkie set from the dollar store back in 2000, and I could have full on conversations with my grandmother if she used the cordless phone, I could also hear the person she was talking to on the other end of the line, but they couldn't hear me. Come to think of it I could've been extremely nefarious with it, but I never really cared enough to try aside from the once. I actually still have one of them somewhere, it's a fake CB unit that was like the "base", I lost both of the walkies though.

You need a friend with a EMC anechoic chamber so you can power up things like this safely.

Very offtopic, but I think your outro tune (the drum n' bass) that includes the ring modulation is to accent the RINGway of your channel name :D Probably way off though :D

Very interesting!

this might come handy for surveillance

I have seen these pop up from time to time on different bands all claiming insane ranges.

The only part of this set that would interest me would be the antenna - for experimental purposes - and maybe the base until for the case only!

Crikey! Very cool and interesting find though.

Lewis, I have some early AMPS kit which you’re welcome to if it’s the kind of thing you’d be interested in? Let me know if you are, and the procedure to get them to you. Another great upload too, good stuff.

Interesting!!👏👏👏👏

That band listing in the 470hz range is fascinating

Love to have a set that was legal to use.

Looks exactly like my first phone. Fond memories...

wow how odd!

have you considered making a faraday cage? To test devices like this without the signal leaving your home/shop. I would be interested in your thoughts on this.

Fascinating!=8)

I'd be curious to see how that antenna performs. Where is it resonant?

I wonder if they were just a scheme to get some mobile use out of a fixed land line - a kind of simple phone patch. Made for a land of loose communication regulations...

That is some weird stuff. I say test it! What, you don't have a large faraday cage in your basement like everyone else? Or maybe you need a test area a few hundred metres down a mineshaft? 😊

We had that same set

In the late 80's there was a HAM radio guy who had a 'cordless' phone rigged up in his car. I don't know how he did it, but he had a regular looking cordless phone and base in his car, a large antenna on the back of his car. He could make calls (called radio stations to demonstrate), I assume it was a radio patch to his house across HAM bands with some sort of device to allow his cordless phone to operate as a handset.

In the 1990s my FRG7 would accidentally pick up cordless phones around 1.9 khz if I had too much to drink and could not see the frequency readout. Well My next door neighbour a primary teacher was arranging to do things with men that I would never consider, and next door to him, she was telling her mother the chap who came around and stayed last night was the best ever. Only if these analogue phones had more output I might of got a 160m antenna up and been entertained for hours

I worked at sea in the early 00s and pilots in ports in the US used something very similar. Had thought they were mobiles at first and then the dude started doing walkie talkie chat on it as well. Was dumbfounded 😂

What a bizarre find. Lewis, this was well worth your £12 purchase just to see this counterfeit product. I can see suggestions below in the comments for a tear down of these phones. I'm very curious as to how a manufacturer has gone to so much effort to to counterfeit Nokia products and yet get it so wrong that its frightening. Dave Jones of EEVblog would no doubt tear this product down with with A LOT of detail.

Used to see these in Iraq attached to what could be described as the loudest ringers ever conceived by man

Nice dnb at the outro

I would really like to take a peek in that base station. Those dodgy green LEDs on the front panel look very promising.

Scary.

this whole product is a fever dream... Big yikes on the handsets tx frequency, good lord. Your very own VOR/DME and TACAN jammer lol

Interesting. I have never heard about those "Nokia" super long range phones until now. Maybe they were only available in the Middle East. But even then, I thought the aircraft band was an world-wide allocation (including the Middle East). Now I have heard about illegal extended range cordless phones(here in the U.S.). I think I might have seen ads for them in electronic hobbyist magazines in the 80's and 90's. Those ran several watts and usually at the end of the AM broadcast band and/or around 46/49 Mhz.

Beauty! What's inside?

The Dolphin Tetra link doesn't seem to be in the description? Just FYI

Crazy how this was just five years before the first iPhone.

Looks like my first phone

The U.K. government is far too oppressive regarding radio frequencies.

The chart to find the used frequencies that you show in the beginning, where did you find it? Is it a website?

In 1998 I got similar fake Nokia from abroad but it was cordless home phone it worked at the radius around 6 miles it interfered with police radio’s of course I didn’t know that till the radio airways eventually found me and taken it off me they didn’t charge me because I cooperated with them they said I am the first person in the uk to have these phone When they rang me I was at the doctors about a mile away with this Nokia and I talked to them with this Nokia cordless I carried it around in the city centre and people would be surprised and ask me what am I carrying 😊

I heard from a coworker that he bought cordless phones which he said transmitted several Km back around 2002 in Indonesia. I was pretty skeptical then, but now I suspect something like what is shown in this video is what he was describing. Wow, that is a lot of illegality and deception in one package, especially the handset transmitting on ~115 MHz!

I remember the trademark senao that made long range phones

Could these really have been intended as jammers? Given the frequency, it seems likely they could have been used to force air traffic into a more predictable pattern which would make a small team with MANPADS more effective...

In safe hands thankfully 😂😂