First Public Safety UHF User???

[zerg901]

Anybody know who the first public safety user of UHF (450 to 470 Mhz) was? Maybe somewhere around 1960?

[zerg901]

Boston Mass Police apparently went to UHF around 1972. Maybe 1970. Philadelphia Police might have been on 453 Mhz before that. Maybe NYPD and Chicago PD were on UHF before 1970 also. ???

[n5ims]

According to this page (GE MOBILE RADIO HISTORY), GE made UHF radios (their Pre-Progress line of radios) starting in July of 1954. In 1955 they released the new "Progress Line" of radios to compete with the Motorola Twin-V series (the T44 models were their UHF versions).

I haven't yet found links to any of the early users of the UHF band, but this would have been in 1954 or so since that's when the FCC opened the 450 - 470 MHz band up to the land mobile users.

[zz0468]

I once had a Motorola UHF base station that once belonged to a county agency in Southern California. Manufacture date of the radio was around 1956.

[MTS2000des]

City of Atlanta PD migrated to UHF in 1970. Detectives remained on VHF, as did Atlanta fire until 1995 when the city purchased their first Smartnet II 800MHz TRS, and that system was replaced in 2009 with their Astro 25 digital system.

[zerg901]

Maybe I can try to find some APCO Magazines from around 1954. Or some police or fire magazines. Maybe a local newspaper might have a story also.

[b7spectra]

In the late 60's, Jacksonville Police switched to 453.

[zerg901]

JoinOPD - Omaha Police Department Recruitment - History

Omaha Nebraska PD went to UHF in April 1971 - 8 channels - 3 way

1931 - first radios - KGPI

1948 - got handi talkies

1923 - could reach all areas of city in under 5 minutes using motorcycles from Pillboxes