Historic Hood River
Early Cell Phone
Notes
Crag Rat Christopher Van Tilburg shared this image from the 1970s. Crag Rats elders believe that may be Dick Pooley and Lefty Levens operating the Vietnam War era radio, with the image captured by Rob Hukari or Bill Sheppard. Please confirm or correct if you have better information.
Note that Mt. St. Helens still has its pre-1980 eruption height.
While this really isn’t a cell phone the very first cell phone call was demonstrated about this time, as you can learn in this article. We know from our archives of early Mt. Hood climbs there were efforts to communicate with the “outside world”: from the signal torches climbers would light in the 1890s, to the radios on American Legion climbs in the 1930s, to this radio, to modern cell phones and satellite rescue beacons.
Tomr
Very likely an early homemade 2M amateur radio. In addition to mountaineering, Dick Pooley was an avid ham operator and experimenter. The photo looks like it may be on the Cooper Spur route with Mt Rainier and Mt Adams in the background.
BethH
Don Pattison texted me this pic recently found in his father, Bill’s, stuff.
Lefty would be on the left – wearing the pack, Pooley on right.
More likely a Bill Bryan photo.
Arthur Babitz
Thanks for the clarification, BethH.