Historic OK Law Enforcement Communication

[Historyfan]

I am looking for information about the communication method(s) used by the (Oklahoma) State Crime Bureau, as it was known between 1938 and 1957, and city/town and county law enforcement agencies during World War II (1941-1945).
In those years, was there an Oklahoma-specific law enforcement radio system that would have alerted county/city/town law enforcement agencies of a major crime (Jail/prison break, bank robbery, etc.) and issued, to use today’s lingo, a BOLO? Or would the state have had to depend on telegrams to get the word out?

 

[Freqed]

I seem to recall a lowband (my term) 150.xxx range called Statenet? years ago.

 

[kc2asb]

Generally speaking - before WW2, many departments used radio systems that operated just above the AM broadcast band (1600 kHz) or in the 2000 kHz range on shortwave. The mobile units sometimes just had receivers and could not transmit back to headquarters, while others could transmit back on VHF Low. During the 40's and 50's, departments began to migrate to two-way radio systems on VHF-Low (30-50 MHz) and even VHF-High (150 -174 MHz)

Popular Communications magazine had a monthly column that covered radio history. I remember that they covered the history of police radio communications but I don't recall which issue(s) it appeared in. It's a long shot, but here is a link to an archive of the back issues plus an index the covers the entire run of the magazine (1982 - 2013)

POPULAR COMMUNICATIONS: DX SWL and Utilities hobbyist maghazine

Popular Communications was a magazine with content relating to the radio hobby, including scanners, shortwave radio, CB, amateur radio, AM and FM broadcast band listening, radio history, and vintage radio restoration. The magazine existed between 1982 and 2013

www.worldradiohistory.com

Wish I could offer more specific answers. Good luck in your search!

Note the police band on this circa 1940 Philco

 

[Historyfan]

I seem to recall a lowband (my term) 150.xxx range called Statenet? years ago.

Thank you for the suggestion. I'll search that keyword.

 

[Historyfan]

Generally speaking - before WW2, many departments used radio systems that operated just above the AM broadcast band (1600 kHz) or in the 2000 kHz range on shortwave. The mobile units sometimes just had receivers and could not transmit back to headquarters, while others could transmit back on VHF Low. During the 40's and 50's, departments began to migrate to two-way radio systems on VHF-Low (30-50 MHz) and even VHF-High (150 -174 MHz)

Popular Communications magazine had a monthly column that covered radio history. I remember that they covered the history of police radio communications but I don't recall which issue(s) it appeared in. It's a long shot, but here is a link to an archive of the back issues plus an index the covers the entire run of the magazine (1982 - 2013)

POPULAR COMMUNICATIONS: DX SWL and Utilities hobbyist maghazine

Popular Communications was a magazine with content relating to the radio hobby, including scanners, shortwave radio, CB, amateur radio, AM and FM broadcast band listening, radio history, and vintage radio restoration. The magazine existed between 1982 and 2013

www.worldradiohistory.com

Wish I could offer more specific answers. Good luck in your search!

Note the police band on this circa 1940 Philco


View attachment 187581

Thanks. I'll check the magazine.

 

[kc2asb]

Check out the May, 1995 "Early Police Radio Systems" beginning on page 22 of the PDF

July 1994 - the police radio telegraph system beginning on page 19 of the PDF

There may be other articles, but those are the two I remembered. No mention of Oklahoma that I could see, except it appears on a map showing the radio telegraph stations.

 

[KevinC]

It would help if people would actually post about the specific agency (Oklahoma State Crime Bureau) the OP asked about.

 

[nd5y]

FM - TELEVISION MAGAZINE - An early journal about the new FM and TV services

FM & Television Magazine offers an interesting view of early FM, including articles about the early FM Association in 1947 and the equipment and engineering aspects of the band

www.worldradiohistory.com

Some of the old issues of FM and Television from 1948 to the 1950s have sections where they list newly issued FCC licenses for state and local governments in different states. I don't know which issues have Oklahoma.

 

[Tulsey]

Later in the 1960s there was what they called State Net at 155.67 where various LE agencies could talk to each other base to base

 

[kc2asb]

The World Radio History website allows you to search their entire site for documents using key terms. You can then search the individual PDF documents that are returned in the search results. I did a search for "Oklahoma State Crime Bureau", which generated no results. However, "Oklahoma State Police" generated a few results in an old radio magazine from the 1930's. You can see that there are references to Oklahoma and other law enforcement agencies operating on shortwave frequencies. Call signs and frequencies are provided.

https://www.worldradiohistory.com/IDX2/search.cgi?zoom_sort=0&zoom_xml=0&zoom_query=%22Oklahoma+State+Police%22&zoom_cat%5B%5D=-1&zoom_per_page=10

 

[Historyfan]

Later in the 1960s there was what they called State Net at 155.67 where various LE agencies could talk to each other base to base

Thanks. I'll check that out.

 

[Historyfan]

The World Radio History website allows you to search their entire site for documents using key terms. You can then search the individual PDF documents that are returned in the search results. I did a search for "Oklahoma State Crime Bureau", which generated no results. However, "Oklahoma State Police" generated a few results in an old radio magazine from the 1930's. You can see that there are references to Oklahoma and other law enforcement agencies operating on shortwave frequencies. Call signs and frequencies are provided.

https://www.worldradiohistory.com/IDX2/search.cgi?zoom_sort=0&zoom_xml=0&zoom_query=%22Oklahoma+State+Police%22&zoom_cat%5B%5D=-1&zoom_per_page=10

View attachment 188009

Thanks

 

[Motoflightmedic]

Later in the 1960s there was what they called State Net at 155.67 where various LE agencies could talk to each other base to base

155.670 was known at one time as Point to Point, typically a channel for base stations (dispatch centers) to talk to each other. The last time that i seen it used was between Weatherford PD and Clinton OHP and that was only used to ask if the other received a teletype message through the OLETS system.

 

[Giddyuptd]

Later in the 1960s there was what they called State Net at 155.67 where various LE agencies could talk to each other base to base

Doesn't Tulsa area utilize the 155.670 as a car to car repeated? I only know that cause one of our county repeaters is so high up on a mountain there is times it'll get skip from there and some genius decided the repeater should run in csq to repeat here so it picks it up and bleeds over. Though this will be changing out this end soon.