The International Police Radio
| Author | Voit |
| Published date | 01 July 1931 |
| Date | 01 July 1931 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X3100400315 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
The
International Police Radio
By
POLICE-LIEUTENANT-COLONEL
VOlT
With the kind permission of
Dr.
Weiss, Police President, Berlin Police.
[Translated]
THEgreater use the criminal world makes of modern technical appliances, the
more strenuously must the police endeavour to adopt counter-measures in
order to succeed in the conflict with crime. Now that frontiers no longer offer
any obstacle to the criminal, and the use of car or aeroplane is an everyday
occurrence, the need has arisen for a means of communication more rapid
than the criminal's facilities for transport. Out of this need there came
into being the International Police Radio.
The
idea of an International Police Radio-grid with mutualintercommuni-
cation originated from Germany on the occasion of the Congress of the Inter-
national Criminal Police Commission at Berne in
1928.1
After the war,
Germany, owing to her internal political situation, had already instituted a
system of Police Radio-grid of her
own;
so it was proposed to extend this
system beyond the frontiers of the kingdom. By Nov. 15th, 1929, the plan
had taken shape, and the International Police Radio System was
put
into
force.
The
main advantage of International Police Radio is the rapidity with
which communications can be transmitted. This, again, depends primarily
on the basic principle of wireless
telegraphy-its
entire freedom of all con-
ductors-but
also on the fact that radio stations can be installed at any police
station direct, and are therefore independent of the arrangements of the
postal system.
The
fact that to-day it is possible to communicate direct from the head-
quaters of the Police President in Berlin with the police headquarters in
Vienna makes it possible to realize the progress that has been made. There
is no need now to hand in a telegram to the post-office, where it will pass
through various stages, and be re-telegraphed, copied and checked, finally to
arrive at its destination after several
hours;
for the police officialsin Berlin,
Vienna and other places included in the Police Radio System can communi-
cate with each other direct.
Broadcasting by means of wireless telegraphy is another great advantage
of Police Radio. News transmitted by one station may be heard by several
stations simultaneously.
Thus
a police broadcast can be transmitted in the
same way as an entertainment, the difference being that the police broadcast
is sent out on their own specially allotted wavelengths and not by telephone,
the messages being transmitted in the Morse code.
This
has the great
advantage that the messages do not fall into unauthorized hands, but only into
those for whom they are intended.
The
benefit of such a broadcast is, of
course, enormous.
Let
us imagine, for instance, that there has been a big
1See The PoliceJournal, Vol.
ii,
p, 166.
467
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