Police Radios in 1950

[RamblinRedneck]

I remember as a kid in the 90s listening to the local police and fire with an ancient Realistic Pro-2008. In recent years everyone has gone digital, and I never upgraded. I use an old scanner now just to listen to the local 2 meter HAM repeaters.

 

[mws72]

Back in the 30's the Iowa State Patrol was first patrolling the highways of Iowa. The patrolmen were instructed to listen to WHO-1040 in Des Moines at certain times each hour for information/orders. The 42 MHz channels for broadcasts came along after WWII. They added a channel for talkback and a car to car in the fifties. They moved to present VHF-High system in the late 70's. Currently the state is working with contractors to build a 700 MHz statewide system.

 

[iMONITOR]

in michigan i would get peed off when trying to hear the michigan state police because you could never hear them then found out a long time latter they were useing a very new radio system that was very close to what they have now was a very early model of the mpscs system today.

When was that? I've been living in Michigan for 68 years. I began monitoring in 1964. Prior to APCO-25 MPSCS, I never recalled MSP using anything other than VHF/low & VHF/high.

 

[iMONITOR]

Does anyone know what frequency police were commonly using in 1950?

Yesterday I was watching a movie made in 1950 entitled "Mystery Street." I like to watch old movies to see the stuff people used back then and even to get an idea of how they lived.

This movie was shot in Boston, and it was interesting to see the police there using a 1950 Ford with a long antenna attached to a ball mount on the driver's side in the rear. That antenna looked like it could have been in the 27 MHz class because of its length. There probably were no repeaters used by police in that era, so they would have had to depend on direct contact with a base antenna (?).

Just curious. Thanks.

I think the Detroit Police were one of the first to equip some vehicles with one-way radio (station to cars) back in 1928. They used Shortwave radios!

 

[teknishun]

Now, if we could just find out what kind of radio was used by the California Highway Patrol in the
1957 thriller "The Monolith Monsters." They had the patrol car and the landline telephone system
patched together and calls were being relayed by "the big transmitter." Was "the big transmitter" a
Motorola product? <lol>

 

[CincyKid]

From about 1955-1964, the Cincinnati Police Department could be received on many standard AM radios somewhere around 1610 k.c. Many AM electric radios of the 1950's could go down that far on the dial. All that could be heard were the main dispatches (not the cars). I believe the tower was located in Eden Park just outside of the immediate downtown area and was called Station X. The closer to the tower the better the signal was although it was fairly easy to receive in the suburbs. Strangely enough, however, I was able to pick up the signal of this station from this some 150 miles away in south-central Kentucky on more than one occasion on a small table model radio. Later on in the 1960's, Cincinnati Police moved to the 154 m.c. area for its transmissions.

 

[chief21]

I've often read that low-band, AM police radio systems were "one-way"... the squad cars could listen but not transmit back to headquarters. I suppose there weren't too many mobile transmitters in those days. "Calling all cars - Calling all cars..."

I do remember, however, that VHF-FM two-way radios were quite common for most PD's by the early 1960's.

- John

 

[CaptDan]

Trenton NJ PD used a low band frequency, with the 102 inch antenna mounted to a spring on a ball mount until 1972 - 1974 when they switched over to 453.375