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« on: December 01, 2022, 08:48:42 PM »
Many years ago when I was in private practice I represented an inventor (and dear friend) who had invented a wireless (radar) in the ear hearing aid that could also be used as a voice activated cell phone. This was just a before Bluetooth was starting to become common. Anyway, for various reasons, Motorola was tangentially interested with another entity in licensing the patent. We were invited to the then headquarters in Schaumburg, IL. As part of the dance we were taken on a tour of Motorola’s private museum. Motorola got its start making car radios way back when. My eyes fell upon a radio-walky-talky device like you would see in old WWII movies. The curious thing was that it was damaged. I asked the guide why they would display a broken radio.
It seems the railroads around the Chicago area and beyond used them. Motorola noticed a very high incidence of warranty returns from the railroads that did not exist with other non-railroad customers. Motorola sent a team to follow the crews around to see if they could figure out why. It turns out the brakemen and conductors were using them as what the guide called “wheel chocks” on their freight trains. It was a “run what ya brung” sort of thing. Maybe Joe Fox has heard of this😉
Dave
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