[BC] Police radio above the AM band (was: WHINING)

[Kevin Tekel]

Ron Castro wrote:
> That was a *real* long time ago, but I do remember seeing AM broadcast
> table radios with "Police" marked on the high end of the dial above
> 1600 kc.

That is correct.  In fact, I had a Philco table radio, circa 1941, which
had two bands: "Standard" (540-1500 kHz) and "Police" (1500-2500 kHz or
so).  1712 kHz was the most common frequency for one-way police dispatch
radio, so many pre-WWII broadcast receivers tuned up to 1720 kHz or so
on the AM band.  Reportedly there was also some police communications
just above the 160M ham band (above 2000 kHz) but that was not nearly as
common as the 1710-1715 kHz transmissions, which started in the 1920s and
continued until the early 1960s, although after WWII it was heavily phased
out in favor of two-way low-band VHF radio -- which today is itself being
phased out in favor of high-band VHF, UHF, and 800+ MHz communications.

Even in rural and/or hilly areas, police departments are opting to use
UHF or 800+ MHz with multiple repeater sites, rather than rely upon the
wide-area coverage of low-band or even high-band VHF.  Now that I think
of it, I haven't seen those long low-band whip antennas on the back of
police cars in my area since the late '90s.  But yet, the fire departments
in my area still use sirens, which are an even older kind of dispatching
than radio -- go figure!




		
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