The first Iowa HIGHWAY Patrol VHF Radios

Status
Not open for further replies.

Sisilija

Member
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Sep 16, 2005
Messages
71
Location
Vinton
When the then "Iowa Highway Patrol" went to the VHF system in 1975, they used two different mobile radios - an Aerotron and another that went bankrupt while they were deploying the radios. Who can help me out on the name of those radios? Seems like it was similar to TelTec but I know that is not the name.
 

mws72

Member
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Mar 30, 2002
Messages
805
Location
Quad-Cities (IA-IL) USA
I have a Trooper Assn. Magazine with an article about the changeover. from the late 70's. I will try to find and see what it says. i know there was a lot of historical discussion in the Scaniowa on yahoogroups. Might be a place to look.
\
BTW they had changeover to Iowa State Patrol in 1974.
 

radioboy75

Member
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Jul 31, 2004
Messages
221
Location
Rock Rapids, Iowa
Seeing that again reminded me of a couple of questions I had about these. I understand the tone and the area. There are three "areas," duplicated in zones across the state. These areas have different DPS (base) and LEA pairs. For instance, Area 1 is 155.640/154.650 for DPS and 155.790/154.770 for LEA. Other areas use different pairs. The tones correspond to the different towers in the area. For instance, in my area, Tone A (127.3 Hz) is for the Storm Lake tower. Tone B (146.2) is for the Merrill tower. Tone C (167.9) is for the Matlock tower, and Tone D (192.8) is for the Terril tower.

But two things I don't know for sure:

1. What was tone E and when (if ever) was it used?
2. The "area" inner knob switches between "norm" and "alt". What was that for?

My guess (since I know they used to do this, but don't know how) is that "ALT" is for "talkaround" mode. In other words, not using a repeater, transmitting and receiving on the output of the repeater. I also have heard that they would use an out-of-region "area," turn off the tone, and listen on the input fq on their scanners for a "secret" car-to-car channel. This may have been done before cell phones and before my time, as I had all the inputs and outputs programmed into my scanner and never heard a peep on the other ones unless I traveled to another part of the state where they were in normal use.

Anybody know for sure?
 

mws72

Member
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Mar 30, 2002
Messages
805
Location
Quad-Cities (IA-IL) USA
Back in the early days of the system I heard a telephone patch that was initialed by the Dispatcher in the southeast area on DPS. Not sure which tower as it was enhanced reception for me that night. There was a thread on scaniowa back in the early days of the group. I think the E pairs were never designed, I never saw any listings with pairs of frequency but definitely it been for future use, the tone may have been mentioned. The voice privacy was the plain voice inversion type and I did hear some in the 76-77 time period. Alt was simplex not sure if on the output or the input with no tones.
 

w0fg

Member
Joined
Mar 7, 2005
Messages
460
Location
Decorah, IA
Interesting. When I was a summer relief dispatcher at CF State in '67, we were still on low band and the radios were GE Mastr's and Motorola Motracs. I wonder why they went with weird off-brand radios when the switch was made to VHF.
 

mws72

Member
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Mar 30, 2002
Messages
805
Location
Quad-Cities (IA-IL) USA
In a State Trooper Association magazine I have (somewhere) there was an article that discussed the need and plans to upgrade State Communications. A study of going to UHF revealed that they would need to have a repeater in almost every county. The bid package was given to all the usual providers, but the bids were too high so Aerotron won. On a follow-up bid round Aerotron lost because theirs was too high. Probably thinking they had the system in their favorite.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top