The evolution of police communications (and what's still ahead)

It’s so easy in today’s technology filled world to read the word “communications” and think of a great number of electrical devices: radios, cell phones, home phones, computer-based and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) communication applications. With all the electronic communications tools we have, which include not only the hardware pieces but also the software support, it’s not often we think about the time before we had such tools. Can you imagine being a police officer on the street without a radio? How about not even a phone. Let me take you back. Way, way back.

There was a time before any signaling devices, where all communications were done either by voice (shouting if necessary) or by hitting something to make a series of sounds. Whistles were probably the first widely used signaling devices and even the earliest whistles weren’t metal or (obviously) plastic. The earliest whistles could be shaped out of hollowed out items like acorns or plum pits. By scraping off both ends—usually done by rubbing them on rocks and then digging out the meat inside—an object that could be held between the lips and blown through to make a whistling sound was created. Some societies used these crude devices to alert villages if enemy troops were approaching or for calling for help.

Jump to the 1880s—police officers were trying to communicate through the use of rattles. In 1884, a gentleman named Joseph Hudson showed his brass “pea whistle” design to Scotland Yard and they adopted it for use. The use of such a whistle grew across Europe and then around the world, and many agencies still use the whistle today as part of directing traffic or other duties where getting someone’s attention is necessary.

The first police telephone was installed in Albany, New York in 1877. The first police call box was put into service in Chicago, Illinois in 1880. During the 1880s, several large cities in the U.S. installed call box systems: Washington D.C., Boston, and Detroit among them. Some of the earliest call boxes even included a rotary dial feature that signaled, via telegraph, a code with a specific message. Some of the messages included: police wagon required, accident, murder, disorderly (drunkard) and others.

It was thirty years later (1928) that the first portable radio system was developed and put into use. In Detroit, a one-way radio system was developed that allowed someone in police headquarters to dispatch to all patrol vehicles an informational call. Those earliest radios didn’t have a dedicated frequency or band and had to be registered with the Federal Radio Commission.

Just five years after that, in 1933, the Bayonne, New Jersey police department installed two-way radio systems in their patrol vehicles. The radios enabled back-and-forth communications between cars and the headquarters or district station. It used a very high frequency (VHF) system and increased patrol efficiency through streamlining clarity of communications. Questions could be asked and answered; extra information could be provided as it was received.

The first handheld radio came into being in 1940 and was built by the Galvin Mfg. Co. (what became Motorola). Primarily developed for military use and far larger than what we consider a handheld radio to be today, the “handy talkie” allowed for two-way communications in a package that you could carry on your back (originally) or in your hand (after further development).

Believe it or not (and this shocked me when I read it), the first car phone—otherwise known as a “radiotelephone”—was installed in October of 1946. Again, built by Motorola and called the “Car Radiotelephone,” the signal was mixed over to the Illinois Bell Telephone lines and quickly grew to the capacity of the system. Somehow, knowing that car phone technology existed almost 70 years ago makes me wonder why some police agencies didn’t have even handheld radio technology in use as late as the 1970s.

In-car two-way radios became more and more common, but the average police officer, upon exiting his patrol vehicle, or walking a beat, still didn’t have ready communications until the handheld radio went mainstream. The biggest challenge that existed, without us even knowing it, was that technology was about to explode with capability and our demand for its portable use was going to explode in parallel.

By the end of the 1980s it would be commonplace for every patrol officer to have a radio in his vehicle and on his belt; or one on his belt that he could plug into a base mounted in his car that served to recharge the radio’s battery and allowed communication through the vehicle’s microphone/speaker system. By the early Nineties we saw the first mobile data terminals (MDTs) or in-car computer systems. While car radio and landline-based telephone systems had been mixed in the 1940s, the advent of computers mounted in cars presented a whole new chapter in portable communications; and one that would complicate things as well as create new challenges at a level never before seen or imagined.

When we introduced mobile computers into our patrol vehicles we went farther beyond two-way radio communications than we ever expected. Looking back at it now, the electronics were straight forward, as were the mounting challenges. Wire the computer up so that it is powered and mount it so that it’s out of the way of the operator. We had to overcome the challenges of keeping computers out of the way of deploying airbags, but we successfully worked around that. We had to find a way to transmit controlled data over a radio wave or a cellular carrier wave and we successfully did that. We needed to develop software that integrated data transmission with radio communications and we did that, too.

In parallel to those efforts, the commercial cellular phone industry was also exploding.

We went from handheld phones that allowed only voice communication to:

• Devices that allowed push-to-talk (PTT) capability
• Devices that allowed two-way text communication
• Devices that took pictures and allowed transmission of them
• Devices that allowed access to the Internet.

The world has never been the same since.

In 2001, the law enforcement communications industry and indeed the commercial cellphone industry as a whole got a rude awakening. The terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001 demonstrated, in a very ugly way, that our public safety first responders were crippled to near dysfunction by the inability to communicate with one another. Neighboring jurisdictions couldn’t effectively talk with one another and responders in the field who had equipment dependent on repeater towers couldn’t even talk to their own dispatch centers.

“Interoperability” became the new buzzword for the communications industry. No matter what kind of radio you had; no matter what band or frequency it used; no matter whether it was mounted in your car, handheld, in a station—no matter what the differences were, the industry faced the challenge of making every radio talk to every other radio. The concept of “radio agility” was born in the midst of the challenge. While some companies built central station solutions which required one radio from every participating agency be plugged in to enable cross-system comms, some radio manufacturers started building multiple bands into their systems.

As that was going on in the background, the role mobile data terminals/on-board computers played in day-to-day communications was growing by leaps and bounds. Less and less information was being provided by voice communication and more was being transmitted directly to the MDT screen. That, too, caused another evolving need— the need for management of all the data collected and mined. All too often we forget just how much information is available to be searched, analyzed, organized and fed back to the end user: the officer on the street. Which brings us to where we are today.

I had opportunity to interview the President of Pryme Radio, Dave George, and he made a statement that was surprising but true: “Technology evolution far outpaces network implementation.” Consider that for a moment. For everything law enforcement agencies are doing with technology today, far more technology is available—and being quickly developed—that we’re not using. What stops us? Budgets, time constraints, political debates (over jurisdictions and decisions) and more prevent us from fully leveraging available technologies.

One thing that historically limited us was power supply. Since virtually every piece of tech we use depends on provided power, until battery technology grew sufficiently, we were leashed to a hard-wire power supply or a portable supply generator which was most often our patrol vehicle’s engine. Batteries have also come a long way since the days of the NyCad. As Curt Quinter of IPT (Impact Power Technologies) points out, the NyCad battery provided good power within an acceptable temperature range, but it had serious memory problems. You could recharge it, but if you never fully discharged it “learned” to only work for a specific period of time rather than working to its full length capability.

Battery technology evolved through nickel metal hydride (which was a little better than the NyCads) and into Lithium ion (which was good but proved temperature sensitive). Then, thanks to Quinter and his engineering team, the Lithium Polymer battery was born. Specifically developed to power two-way radios, the Lithium Polymer battery has been repeatedly laboratory tested to provide reliable power for well over 24 hours per charge and sometimes as much as 32 hours or more in the field.

More and more we see law enforcement communication tasks being potentially handled either via software on an MDT or via smartphone app. When you think about it, the smartphone is capable of doing everything that the MDT does, plus it can handle virtually all of the “radio” communications as well, if it has the right apps available and installed.

When I asked Quinter and George about the future of law enforcement technology and where we might be in five or ten years, neither could offer a confident answer. Ken Murphy of IPT did though; he said that we can count on seeing ever smaller and lighter tools equipped with ever more powerful software applications powered by ever increasing—and someday passively recharged—batteries. The end result, and most desired outcome, is a lightweight, very rugged, suitably sized device that is our phone, our radio, our MDT, our search engine, our data mining, data analysis and data reporting device. Murphy feels this device could be created today if the industry worked together to accomplish it.

I don’t know about you, but the idea of a full-service dispatch center (effectively) on my belt or in my pocket that processes all voice, text, image, video and other data and functions for an entire shift on a single charge gives me wonder. When I first put a radio on my belt in 1986 I never in my wildest dreams thought that we’d come so far so fast.