Digital to Analog

You can probably reuse the bag. All the rest of it needs replaced.

If its an analog bag phone then the contract probably expired about 10 years ago. I don't know of any way to get on the digital network without a new contract. Shop around, if they don't give you a free phone as a contract signing bonus then go across the street to the other cell phone company. You might not get a fancy camera phone for free, but if you let them know you are talking to the other 2 or 3 big cell phone companies then at least one of them will give you a good phone for free.

The phone companies make their money from the contract. When you walk in the door the salesman doesn't see a phone sale customer, they see a 2 year contract customer. They don't care very much about the phone. They do care about the 2 year contract. Make them work for it.

The only thing you can do, is to rip its guts out and replace with a new digital handset.

Would be a bit of work if you want to keep the original asthetics of the "old bag" also, taking care that it still meets the emmissions approval.

Maybe, converting the headset to the phone piece, and the main body inside the gutted main part.

Guessing your "Old Bag" will be kilo's (lb's) lighter in the end.

Motorola brought out a digital version of it shortly after the GSM sets came about. The SIM card plugged in on the base set. I only saw it once in a Motorola service center, where I used to work, and not since. Obviously they weren't popular (mainly due to the rapid expansion of the GSM Network that provided a better coverage and powerful bulky sets were no longer needed) I myself used to repair a lot of those bag-phones.

I wonder if the US still does support the analog mobile network! In most parts of the world analog has long gone into oblivion. Most current users, the young ones, do not even know that it had ever existed.

I do not think you could even trade it in. Nothing lasts for ever, you know.

You could tie a rope around it and use it for a boat anchor, then sell your regular anchor for scrap metal and use the money from that to buy a new phone. Those will fit into your pocket and you won't look so gay carrying one around...

Not very PC.....

There could be some nasty base metals in an old 'phone that the sea life might not be too keen on.

try hackaday.com , they probably have an idea or two of what you can do with it... :)

Hello...I, too, have the original Audiovox Bag Phone with my original number from 1990 or 91..it was grandfathered in with Cell 1, now Alltel. I called Verizon, I have a little cell phone with them, and hate it. They can transfer my old bag number to a new digital bag phone, that only Motorola has, evidently..Audiovox no longer makes them, and is probably out of business...I don't know for sure..but there are digital bag-type phones available..pricy, around $600 new, but e-bay has them for about $150-$250, and you can get slightly used ones. Motorola M800 or M900 are current..shop around the internet for the different sites that offer these phones...I think that will be the best we can do..Dinosaurs fall hard..I never took my phone out of the truck, but lived off grid in the mountains for years with the phone...good luck..Montana

Don't throw it away. Post it on some forum or exchange/sell-buy websites, somebody might wants it. Even if nobody is interested in it, probably good to keep it until it becomes, well, a kinda collection item.