Jim said: ...one of my regulars from early DX from Indiana was KCA999 the New Hampshire State Police in Concord. They transmitted on 1682 kHz in AM mode. And thankfully I have a QSL from them dated 1968. ///// My hometown PD (Rockford IL) had an AM band station starting in 1933 with the call WPGD. The station was gone by the time I became interested in radio. So I never heard them and I'm not sure what frequency they were on. But the end-fed long wire antenna for the station remained strung between police headquarters and city hall well into the late 70s.
I read a history of LAPD communications that said they were on 1712 kc (later moved to 1730 kc) from 1931 to 1949 with the call KGPL. I have a QSL posted on my AM-DXer web site (see link below) from the New York City Fire Department from 1939 when they were on 1630 kc with the call WNYF. Although modern interoperability standards push "plain language" operations now, I have always been fascinated with the very early brevity codes that still creep into use on some public safety radio systems. For example, my hometown still uses "signal 8" to refer to a meeting between two officers. NYPD still uses "K" to signify the end of a transmission. And the Miami area still uses "QSL" to acknowledge that a message was received. When I was a police dispatcher in IL in the 70s our department routinely used about 200 brevity codes that every officer and dispatcher was required to memorize. Now, over 30 years later, I can't remember what I had for breakfast this morning. But I still have those dang radio codes burned into my long-term memory. Patrick Griffith, CBT CBNT CRO Westminster CO http://community.webtv.net/AM-DXer/ http://community.webtv.net/N0NNK/ _______________________________________________ IRCA mailing list IRCA@hard-core-dx.com http://montreal.kotalampi.com/mailman/listinfo/irca Opinions expressed in messages on this mailing list are those of the original contributors and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the IRCA, its editors, publishing staff, or officers For more information: http://www.ircaonline.org To Post a message: irca@hard-core-dx.com
