Motorola Phone Transmission

Are you sure what you have is a phone line? (can you make a call on it?)

"SUN4008A" is a microwave transcoder IC Chip and "82125A" is a part number for a micorwave receiver.

It sounds like what you have is a microwave transmission system test set. They often have a phone jack built in to use as a "shout line" so that testers working on both ends of a microwave link can talk to each other while troubleshooting.

None of the model numbers you mention come up with a direct hit on Motorola's WWW site though.

I couldn't come up with anything different, but I mpassed the info on to an acquaintance who works for Motorola - mebbe somethin' will come of that. He suggested it might be useful if you could provide pictures of the puppy.

Yes you can make calls with any standard handset pluged into it and it has a phone number assigned to it. By all means I'll take some snapshots of it next time I'm up there and post them here. I should mention this unit was probobly purchased in Colombia but all the info on it is in English.

Well - I see you sorta got your answer already. Anyhow, as I understand it, via email, it is a microwave telephone transceiver. In as much as you say it works ... that you can make and receive regular phonecalls with it, somewhere in its line of site - and within a few thousand yards - is the microwave relay tower with which it communicates. Typical locations for such towers would be at the peak of a ridgeline or hill top or the roof of a tall building, usually one also located on a relatively elevated terrain point. That tower either is connected to wireline phone infrastructure itself, or relays directly or through one or more similar towers to a facility which is. Unlike cellphones, that transceiver and tower prolly are "married"; the phone is not really portable in the cellular sense, though it should work anywhere it can "see" its parent tower. It most likely would need reprogramming to work on any other tower in the network. They're not very common in the US, but they are marketed in regions impractical to outfit with conventional wireline infrastructure. Though still somewhat common in some undeveloped areas, the technology is being supplanted by more modern cellular telephony. My informant tells me that to the best of his knowledge, the unit is not a current-production item, though there appears to be considerable inventory, primarily recycled/refurbushed units, available for distribution. As they are primarily a bulk-lease-to-service-vendor item, he was unable to provide me with any reasonable guestimate of single-unit market value. Apparently Seimens, Matsushita/Panasonic, and Erricson, and perhaps others, have similar items.

Wow Timber a most helpfull and thorough answer as is your custom. That all sounds about right and here's a not so good photo of the unit. I've run accross radio telephones in the US but not this thing.