Wireless Heritage

This is the first of a series of articles written by engineers who have been actively involved in the radio industry over the past fifty years.
These will form part of a UK based Wireless Heritage Project in association with the Pye Telecom Historic Wireless Collection.

Lancashire Constabulary's Developments in Mobile Communications
by John Davies.

John joined the Lancashire Wireless Workshops in 1948 as a radio engineer.
He describes the pioneering work undertaken by Lancashire Constabulary on wide area coverage systems and the parallel evolution of mobile and portable transceivers.
The innovations introduced by Lancashire had tangible benefits in terms of operational efficiency.
John's story, a mix of personal and professional observation, provides a fascinating insight into forty years of radio design experience

John Davies retired in 1984 and lectured for a number of years on private mobile radio system design and implementation. He remains exceedingly active and has maintained a very close interest in radio engineering including recent involvement in a local radio planning enquiry.

A pdf. of his article (with some wonderful archive photographs) is available to download here.

If you have a 'story to tell' please contact us

History of the cellular industry

A new website www.gsm-history.org has been produced by the former leadership of GSM, SMG and UMTS, Thomas Haug, Philippe Dupuis, Friedhelm Hillebrand and Thomas Beijer. The site contains descriptions, milestone tables and original documents, publications and seminar documentation not available elsewhere.

This version 1.0.0 concentrates on the GSM period from 1982 to 1991. Extensions will follow in the next versions. Contributions for the further development of the website are welcome.