I was hired as a police-fire dispatcher right out of high school in the late 1970's. For most of the previous decade I had been an avid scanner listener. In those days VHF High Band was the king of the hill in the Midwest. The state police in most of the region was using low band (42 MHz.) and some of the rural counties in Illinois especially were still on 39 MHz. but in the wider Chicago area the 150-160 MHz. High Band ran supreme. Chicago had recently switched most dispatch to 460 MHz., and many of the suburbs were working on switching over to "T-Band", the 470-482 MHz. band shared with TV Channels 14 and 15.
The switch to T-Band was mostly complete by the mid 1970's but most police departments retained their VHF high band channels as "Channel 2" for when the repeaters on UHF failed or they wanted to talk car-to-car. At the time the Illinois State Police was issuing 4-channel 100-watt VHF Micors, Motracs, Mastr-II's and a couple other model mobile radios as part of the ISPERN project. This gave almost every police car in the state access to the statewide ISPERN (Illinois State Police Emergency Radio Network) channel on 154.680. Base states were at each State Police Post and the Cook and Lake County Sheriff's offices. Chicago PD had a phone line link to the Cook County base and could access it that way. ISPERN was used for flash messages, pursuits and itinerant use for when a car was outside the range of their home radio system. It was, for the time, an advanced interoperability resource that really was a success. The frequency was changed a while later (around 1978 IIRC) to 155.475 when that was promoted as the nationwide police interoperability channel.
The rules with the ISPERN radios were that the ISPERN radios were owned by the state, ISPERN was in Channel 1 on the radios and the Priority Scan was wired to be on at all times. Agencies could put other channels in the radio if they wished, usually that was the old VHF channel or the local PW channel. Later when the IREACH (155.055) channel was established it was suggested that this go in the Channel 3 slot. For those agencies that joined the ISPERN program but provided their own mobile radios they could have it set to allow disabling of the scan function. Dispatch agencies were required to have an ISPERN monitor in the center. Eventually the State Police turned over ownership of the state-provided radios to the agencies that they were assigned to, and the scan-disable feature could be rewired if the agency wanted to. By then however radio prices came down dramatically and many agencies bought their own VHF radios so weren't restricted by ISPERN rules as to the scan setting.
In the decades before ISPERN came around Illinois had a couple channels used for mutual aid. 39.50 was the statewide "Sheriff's Net", used by most sheriff's departments as well as the local police that were provided radio services by the sheriff. There were some small towns in Illinois that were dispatched by the State Police, and they would usually operate on the various State Police 42.xx MHz. channels.
In addition to 39.50, many agencies thruout the state had 39.46 in the dispatch centers, this was the original "Point to Point" channel in Illinois. I know there were some Wisconsin police agencies in the southern part of the state that also had it, but I don't think it was so used by the other midwestern states.
Back in the 50's, 60's and 70's telephone calls were expensive and charged mostly by the mile. By simply adding an additional channel to the base station radio dispatch centers could save money by reducing phone charges. These days even calls across the country cost no more than a call across the street, and most people have unlimited call minutes on their cell phones. Back then you could rack up a huge phone bill just by calling someone 20 miles away.
39.46 was intended to be used only by dispatch centers to talk to each other. If Mayberry got a report of a crash on the Interstate they would call the State Police on "Point" to let them know. Need to check a local vehicle license? Call the other agency on Point. Want to see if the next county has a deputy that can help corral some stray cattle? Call them on Point. As far as I know it was not installed in any mobile radios.
By the 1970's many of the sheriffs’ departments were switching from low band to VHF High Band, from 154 thru 159 MHz. They were then getting rid of the 39 MHz. equipment. A replacement for 39.46 was needed. In a rare instance of peering into the future several midwestern states cooperated and designated 155.370 as the high band Point to Point channel. Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, Iowa, Missouri and Minnesota were on board with this, and I think Kentucky had a few agencies with it as well. Other midwestern states also got on board with this.
Some agencies on the outskirts of the metro area had both 39.46 and 155.37 Point to Point channels thru the 1970's but by the mid 1980's 39.46 was pretty much gone anywhere in the Chicago area. The last places I knew of with 39.46 in the area was the Lake Geneva area in SE Wisconsin, the State Police Post in Elgin (District 2) and Kendall County, Illinois.
Before the 1970's 155.370 in Illinois was called the "City" channel. It was already a Point-to-Point allocation but didn't get that moniker until then. In the closer-in Chicago suburbs that had been on 155 MHz since the 1950's, they usually never had 39.46, pretty much only the further out towns did as their sheriff's departments were on the 39.50 or other low-band channels. Eventually even these agencies abandoned 39.46.
The last time I ever heard 39.46 being used as a Point-to-Point channel was in the late 1980's in the Macoupin County area between Springfield and St. Louis. Pretty soon thereafter this holdout switched to VHF highband. Ford County was the last Sheriff's agency I knew of that used 39.50 for dispatch (until the 1990's), but by then everyone else had left 39.46 so they would have had no one to talk to on that if they had it.
By the time I started dispatching in the 1970's 155.370 WAS the Point-to-point channel. It was heavily used, and dispatchers were expected to monitor it thruout their shift. In the Chicago area it was used mostly to contact the State Police to report accidents on the expressways and tollways and to contact Chicago PD to check for warrants or confirm stolen vehicles. While technically we were supposed to use the state computer system (called LEADS) for that, Chicago was in its own world and played by different rules.
When calling in a warrant check to Chicago a suburban dispatcher had to follow a strict script. Their dispatcher assigned to Point had a terminal on the CPD in-house computer system and one had to present the subject's name in a certain order to allow Chicago to enter the inquiry. Variance from this protocol would result in having to start from scratch. One of the counties in the area (DuPage) used a different set of phonetics than the rest of the world for some reason and, depending on the dispatcher working at Chicago and his mood, they would often need to "start over and use the proper phonetics". Eventually the state made Chicago follow state law and enter their warrants and steals in the state computer and the running of almost every suburban arrestee on "Point" went away.
After the AT&T breakup created competition in the telephone industry, phone calls go a lot cheaper and more practical. Use of Point-to-Point declined and some agencies declined to include it when updating their radio dispatch centers. The town I worked in during the 1980's and 1990's always monitored it but by the time Y2K came around it was usually on semi-permanent Mute status. When I covered the desk, I would listen to it but usually got crickets if I called anyone on it.
There were some issues with "Point" in the Chicago area. For some reason every police department in Indiana took turns identifying with their callsigns on it every half hour. This made it all but unusable for several minutes at the top and bottom of every hour. For those saying that they were only following the rules; if you didn't use the channel you did not need to ID on it. Us in Illinois often thought that they must have cloned dispatchers in Indiana, they all sounded alike; robotic and boring.
Wisconsin allowed mobile units to have "Point-to-Point" installed in them, they occasionally could be heard calling another agency to open a Sally Port etc. Once a Walworth County car came to my Illinois police agency on an investigation and called us for directions, it felt weird answering a mobile unit on what we thought of as a Base only channel.
Occasionally some agency would set up a CW ID'er on "Point". This was as aggravating as well and usually some radio-nerd dispatcher would figure out the agency that did so and convince them to disable it.
In the 2005 or so timeframe a good friend of my wife started dating a retired CPD officer. When we all met for dinner one night I recognized his voice, he had been one of the regular "Point" officers and we had spoken on the radio often. Back in the day CPD dispatchers were usually sworn officers and Communications was just another assignment. Of course we started swapping war stories, some were even true.
The last time I was in the Chicago area I listened to "Point" for much of the week or so I was in there. I never once heard any traffic on it. I doubt anyone still uses it and many agencies probably don't even have it anymore. With cell phones and other technology the tried and true just doesn't matter much anymore.
The switch to T-Band was mostly complete by the mid 1970's but most police departments retained their VHF high band channels as "Channel 2" for when the repeaters on UHF failed or they wanted to talk car-to-car. At the time the Illinois State Police was issuing 4-channel 100-watt VHF Micors, Motracs, Mastr-II's and a couple other model mobile radios as part of the ISPERN project. This gave almost every police car in the state access to the statewide ISPERN (Illinois State Police Emergency Radio Network) channel on 154.680. Base states were at each State Police Post and the Cook and Lake County Sheriff's offices. Chicago PD had a phone line link to the Cook County base and could access it that way. ISPERN was used for flash messages, pursuits and itinerant use for when a car was outside the range of their home radio system. It was, for the time, an advanced interoperability resource that really was a success. The frequency was changed a while later (around 1978 IIRC) to 155.475 when that was promoted as the nationwide police interoperability channel.
The rules with the ISPERN radios were that the ISPERN radios were owned by the state, ISPERN was in Channel 1 on the radios and the Priority Scan was wired to be on at all times. Agencies could put other channels in the radio if they wished, usually that was the old VHF channel or the local PW channel. Later when the IREACH (155.055) channel was established it was suggested that this go in the Channel 3 slot. For those agencies that joined the ISPERN program but provided their own mobile radios they could have it set to allow disabling of the scan function. Dispatch agencies were required to have an ISPERN monitor in the center. Eventually the State Police turned over ownership of the state-provided radios to the agencies that they were assigned to, and the scan-disable feature could be rewired if the agency wanted to. By then however radio prices came down dramatically and many agencies bought their own VHF radios so weren't restricted by ISPERN rules as to the scan setting.
In the decades before ISPERN came around Illinois had a couple channels used for mutual aid. 39.50 was the statewide "Sheriff's Net", used by most sheriff's departments as well as the local police that were provided radio services by the sheriff. There were some small towns in Illinois that were dispatched by the State Police, and they would usually operate on the various State Police 42.xx MHz. channels.
In addition to 39.50, many agencies thruout the state had 39.46 in the dispatch centers, this was the original "Point to Point" channel in Illinois. I know there were some Wisconsin police agencies in the southern part of the state that also had it, but I don't think it was so used by the other midwestern states.
Back in the 50's, 60's and 70's telephone calls were expensive and charged mostly by the mile. By simply adding an additional channel to the base station radio dispatch centers could save money by reducing phone charges. These days even calls across the country cost no more than a call across the street, and most people have unlimited call minutes on their cell phones. Back then you could rack up a huge phone bill just by calling someone 20 miles away.
39.46 was intended to be used only by dispatch centers to talk to each other. If Mayberry got a report of a crash on the Interstate they would call the State Police on "Point" to let them know. Need to check a local vehicle license? Call the other agency on Point. Want to see if the next county has a deputy that can help corral some stray cattle? Call them on Point. As far as I know it was not installed in any mobile radios.
By the 1970's many of the sheriffs’ departments were switching from low band to VHF High Band, from 154 thru 159 MHz. They were then getting rid of the 39 MHz. equipment. A replacement for 39.46 was needed. In a rare instance of peering into the future several midwestern states cooperated and designated 155.370 as the high band Point to Point channel. Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, Iowa, Missouri and Minnesota were on board with this, and I think Kentucky had a few agencies with it as well. Other midwestern states also got on board with this.
Some agencies on the outskirts of the metro area had both 39.46 and 155.37 Point to Point channels thru the 1970's but by the mid 1980's 39.46 was pretty much gone anywhere in the Chicago area. The last places I knew of with 39.46 in the area was the Lake Geneva area in SE Wisconsin, the State Police Post in Elgin (District 2) and Kendall County, Illinois.
Before the 1970's 155.370 in Illinois was called the "City" channel. It was already a Point-to-Point allocation but didn't get that moniker until then. In the closer-in Chicago suburbs that had been on 155 MHz since the 1950's, they usually never had 39.46, pretty much only the further out towns did as their sheriff's departments were on the 39.50 or other low-band channels. Eventually even these agencies abandoned 39.46.
The last time I ever heard 39.46 being used as a Point-to-Point channel was in the late 1980's in the Macoupin County area between Springfield and St. Louis. Pretty soon thereafter this holdout switched to VHF highband. Ford County was the last Sheriff's agency I knew of that used 39.50 for dispatch (until the 1990's), but by then everyone else had left 39.46 so they would have had no one to talk to on that if they had it.
By the time I started dispatching in the 1970's 155.370 WAS the Point-to-point channel. It was heavily used, and dispatchers were expected to monitor it thruout their shift. In the Chicago area it was used mostly to contact the State Police to report accidents on the expressways and tollways and to contact Chicago PD to check for warrants or confirm stolen vehicles. While technically we were supposed to use the state computer system (called LEADS) for that, Chicago was in its own world and played by different rules.
When calling in a warrant check to Chicago a suburban dispatcher had to follow a strict script. Their dispatcher assigned to Point had a terminal on the CPD in-house computer system and one had to present the subject's name in a certain order to allow Chicago to enter the inquiry. Variance from this protocol would result in having to start from scratch. One of the counties in the area (DuPage) used a different set of phonetics than the rest of the world for some reason and, depending on the dispatcher working at Chicago and his mood, they would often need to "start over and use the proper phonetics". Eventually the state made Chicago follow state law and enter their warrants and steals in the state computer and the running of almost every suburban arrestee on "Point" went away.
After the AT&T breakup created competition in the telephone industry, phone calls go a lot cheaper and more practical. Use of Point-to-Point declined and some agencies declined to include it when updating their radio dispatch centers. The town I worked in during the 1980's and 1990's always monitored it but by the time Y2K came around it was usually on semi-permanent Mute status. When I covered the desk, I would listen to it but usually got crickets if I called anyone on it.
There were some issues with "Point" in the Chicago area. For some reason every police department in Indiana took turns identifying with their callsigns on it every half hour. This made it all but unusable for several minutes at the top and bottom of every hour. For those saying that they were only following the rules; if you didn't use the channel you did not need to ID on it. Us in Illinois often thought that they must have cloned dispatchers in Indiana, they all sounded alike; robotic and boring.
Wisconsin allowed mobile units to have "Point-to-Point" installed in them, they occasionally could be heard calling another agency to open a Sally Port etc. Once a Walworth County car came to my Illinois police agency on an investigation and called us for directions, it felt weird answering a mobile unit on what we thought of as a Base only channel.
Occasionally some agency would set up a CW ID'er on "Point". This was as aggravating as well and usually some radio-nerd dispatcher would figure out the agency that did so and convince them to disable it.
In the 2005 or so timeframe a good friend of my wife started dating a retired CPD officer. When we all met for dinner one night I recognized his voice, he had been one of the regular "Point" officers and we had spoken on the radio often. Back in the day CPD dispatchers were usually sworn officers and Communications was just another assignment. Of course we started swapping war stories, some were even true.
The last time I was in the Chicago area I listened to "Point" for much of the week or so I was in there. I never once heard any traffic on it. I doubt anyone still uses it and many agencies probably don't even have it anymore. With cell phones and other technology the tried and true just doesn't matter much anymore.
