Vintage Car Radio

1970's Bell Systems Pulsar 1 Car Phone Receiver Radio IMTS VHF VTG T1683A RC0047

1970's Bell Systems Pulsar 1 Car Phone Receiver Radio IMTS VHF VTG T1683A RC0047
1970's Bell Systems Pulsar 1 Car Phone Receiver Radio IMTS VHF VTG T1683A RC0047
1970's Bell Systems Pulsar 1 Car Phone Receiver Radio IMTS VHF VTG T1683A RC0047
1970's Bell Systems Pulsar 1 Car Phone Receiver Radio IMTS VHF VTG T1683A RC0047
1970's Bell Systems Pulsar 1 Car Phone Receiver Radio IMTS VHF VTG T1683A RC0047
1970's Bell Systems Pulsar 1 Car Phone Receiver Radio IMTS VHF VTG T1683A RC0047
1970's Bell Systems Pulsar 1 Car Phone Receiver Radio IMTS VHF VTG T1683A RC0047
1970's Bell Systems Pulsar 1 Car Phone Receiver Radio IMTS VHF VTG T1683A RC0047
1970's Bell Systems Pulsar 1 Car Phone Receiver Radio IMTS VHF VTG T1683A RC0047
1970's Bell Systems Pulsar 1 Car Phone Receiver Radio IMTS VHF VTG T1683A RC0047
1970's Bell Systems Pulsar 1 Car Phone Receiver Radio IMTS VHF VTG T1683A RC0047
1970's Bell Systems Pulsar 1 Car Phone Receiver Radio IMTS VHF VTG T1683A RC0047

1970's Bell Systems Pulsar 1 Car Phone Receiver Radio IMTS VHF VTG T1683A RC0047
In approximately 1971, Motorola introduced a new fully solid state VHF IMTS telephone called the "Pulsar, " which replaced the 1963 vintage TLD-1100 and TLD-1220 "MJ" sets. The Pulsar was built in a housing which appears similar to the conventional Mocom 70 style radio, but otherwise shared none of the aspects of the Mocom 70. The Pulsar used plug-in circuit cards in a "cage" and modules for all functions except the transmitter power amplifier. The Pulsar supervisory card made first use of a proprietary thick film hybrid IC. The duplexer was combined with the receiver front end circuitry, and called a Trisolector. " The Pulsar would be retroactively called the "Pulsar I" when the "Pulsar II was introduced. The Pulsar was initially offered as a VHF radio only. In the late 1970's, the UHF Pulsar radio was introduced, however the radio package for that model is what is actually called the "Pulsar II" rather than being a UHF version of the Pulsar I drawer shown below. The Pulsar was available with a variety of different control heads and options. It could be ordered to use the traditional control head of the earlier MJ sets, the "Pulsar" control head (a slightly smaller version of the MJ,) and the "FACTS" control head. Later, it could be retrofitted to use the Pulsar II series control heads as well as the Pulsar 100 and 120 heads.

The original Pulsar head did not offer interlocking "Roam" channel pushbuttons and was in that respect more cumbersome to use, at least in the aspect of a roamer trying to step through the various channels to find a marked idle tone. The "FACTS" control head deleted the "Roam" row of pushbuttons altogether and was essentially an IMTS control head designed for limited roaming through urban areas.

It required a number of jumpers to be pre-programmed for the "Roam" list. The FACTS control head could also be used with the earlier "MJ" TLD-1100 series radios.

The typical Pulsar I model was T1878A or T1878B. Pulsars suffered from a number of reliability issues; these included poor contact between the sockets and the plug-in circuit cards, and burned-open foil traces on the mother board because they were unable to reliably carry the 10-12 amps of current to the final amplifier section of the transmitter.

Otherwise, the Pulsars were a design rather ahead of its time. Like the TLD-1100 "MJ" radios, the mobile subscriber's ID was programmed into the equipment by means of pin and jack connections on the supervisory printed circuit board. When the successor Pulsar II was introduced, the original Pulsar could be retrofitted with the "MACS" option, which allowed it to search for and seize a vacant channel when a call was attempted during an "all channels busy" situation. "MACS" stands for Motorola Automatic Channel Sentry.

This was an important feature in the days when waiting for a free channel could be a lengthy process, and allowed its user to "jump" onto a vacant channel usually before others, whose recourse was only to endlessly bring the handset off-hook looking for the green light instead of the red busy light. The typical Pulsar I original VHF head is shown below. The unmarked switch on the far right would be the 12th channel in the UHF model. This item is in the category "Collectibles\Radio, Phonograph, TV, Phone\Telephones\1970-Now". The seller is "sorny86" and is located in this country: US.

This item can be shipped to United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Denmark, Romania, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Finland, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Estonia, Australia, Greece, Portugal, Cyprus, Slovenia, Japan, Sweden, Korea, South, Indonesia, South Africa, Thailand, Belgium, France, Ireland, Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Italy, Germany, Austria, Bahamas, Israel, New Zealand, Philippines, Switzerland, Norway, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Croatia, Republic of, Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Saint Kitts-Nevis, Saint Lucia, Montserrat, Turks and Caicos Islands, Barbados, Bangladesh, Bermuda, Brunei Darussalam, Bolivia, Egypt, French Guiana, Guernsey, Gibraltar, Guadeloupe, Iceland, Jersey, Jordan, Cambodia, Cayman Islands, Liechtenstein, Sri Lanka, Luxembourg, Monaco, Macau, Martinique, Maldives, Nicaragua, Oman, Pakistan, Paraguay, Reunion, Uruguay.

  • Brand: Motorola
  • Time Period Manufactured: 1970-Now
  • Country/Region of Manufacture: United States
  • Modified Item: No


1970's Bell Systems Pulsar 1 Car Phone Receiver Radio IMTS VHF VTG T1683A RC0047