I had a talk with one of the guys that was in charge of the radios from back in the day a few months ago, and yes Edison used to use EF Johnson, Motorola, and GE mobile/portable radios back in the day (prior to the 2002 switch-over to the UHF P16 trunk system). They used a variety of identifiers which included MDC1200, DTMF, GE Star and one other one that I have not been able to identify that I suspect is related to EF Johnson. I still remember very clearly to this day which cars had the various identifiers to them. The EF Johnson mobile radios had some sort of tunable dial at the bottom of the radio, and that's how the channel and volume was changed. I don't know what the specific model type was but was told they were EF Johnson. Those radios date back to the early and mid 1980's as they were transferred from car to car by DPW as the vehicle fleet was upgraded. Finally, after a power supply crash one day in late 2001 or early 2002 of the HQ Dispatch console, Edison was finally able to make the switch-over to the "new" P16 UHF Motorola trunk system, and the days of monitoring Edison PD on a regular basis was over with. Car 36 was the last one that I heard make the transition from the UHF 453.525 system to the UHF trunk system in March, 2002.
Here's what I remember from the Edison Police 453.525 days:
Portable Radios:
Mobile Radios:
Dispatch Console:
had a "3 hammer clank/knock sound" at the end of every transmission.
And the EF Johnson mobile radios had a sound that sounded similar to the Motorola PTT at the beginning, and a GE Star at the end. Something along the lines of this:
http://www.w2sjw.com/sounds/Moto Talk Permit.mp3 "Car 54 to Headquarters..."
http://www.w2sjw.com/sounds/GE STAR.mp3
I did ask one of the retired Captains who was in charge of the radios if there was a chance of getting a clip of Edison PD's radio transmissions from back in the day, even from 9/11 since they were still using the old system back then. Unfortunately, I was told that those radio transmissions are not kept past 3 years.
