ROD ATTEWELL (WT - STANTON?)

This section contains announcements and postings relating to ex-DTELS members of staff who's death has been notified to this forum.
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Paddy Kelly
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Re: ROD ATTEWELL (WT - STANTON?)

Post by Paddy Kelly »

John,

It is great to have confirmation of Rod's time with the Home Office from a former colleague who served with him.

My wife and I attended Rod's funeral service yesterday (Monday 28th September 2015). There was a significant level of support provided at the funeral by the very large number of family, friends and former colleages from across a wide range of occupations.

Rod's older brother gave a tribute speech that included many memories of note-able events - which included from his service with Dtels - and also as a Special Constable with Thames Valley Police. His brother confirmed that Rod had served with Dtels, mentioning that the one task that Rod disliked during his time was that he spent one working day a week at Leicester Prison. [Those of us who have performed that task as a field engineer within Dtels may have an understanding of this comment!]

There was a good turn out of Thames Valley Police staff. Rod's final working role before retirement was as the ICT Network Manager for Thames Valley Police. Rod also served with TVP as a Special Constable for a total of 21 years.

Rod Attewell, a good friend and colleague who has sadly passed away too soon.

Paddy Kelly
29-09-2015
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Steven Cole
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Re: ROD ATTEWELL (WT - STANTON?)

Post by Steven Cole »

Posted on behalf of John Leary

Rod was certainly a member of the Stanton Depot team because I met him when I worked at the Wootton Hall outstation in the late 1960’s/early 1970’s. From memory, I believe that he was outstationed at the Leicester police headquarters and at that time, had specific responsibilities for the closed circuit television systems at HM prisons Gartree and Leicester.

We met a few years later purely by chance when I was based at Horseferry House responsible for WARC fixed system specification writing and was liaising with industry researching the performance and signalling standards of wide area paging systems. To my surprise and delight my contact in the sales and marketing department of Ascom turned out to be Rod. I gained the impression that he was enjoying his commercial role and sales and marketing opportunities enormously.

Although we never worked together, in all of my dealings with Rod I found him to be extremely friendly, affable and genuinely pleased to help and offer advice. Certainly he was most helpful to me in providing technical information in respect of the Ascom product line.

I was extremely sorry to read in the DTels forum of his passing and my most sincere condolences go to his wife, family and friends.

John Leary
28.09.2015
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Steven Cole
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ROD ATTEWELL (WT - STANTON?)

Post by Steven Cole »

Posted on behalf of Paddy Kelly

I have just been advised of the recent sudden and unexpected death of Rod Attewell. I have a belief that Rod worked for the Home Office (Directorate of Telecommunications) earlier in his career as a WT, possibly in the Stanton region.

Rod went on to work for Ascom Radiocom (Swiss company which produced a wide range of communications equipment) when I first met him in the early 1990's. My first contact with Rod was when DTELS was carrying out field trials of "Search and Select" in the Greater Manchester Police Force area using multi UHF base stations located on the Wigan Division. Ascom was one of the group of companies which submitted handportables for the trials that were programmed to "select" the best base station signal for each communication being received. This was a new and potentially beneficial improvement for officers working on UHF over a wide geographical area. The tests resulted in a lot of positive feedback from the users and I believe that Ascom was successful in raising their profile within the Emergency Services.

When I left DTELS at the time of the sell off I was approached by Ascom and worked for them as their UK Technical Consultant with Rod as my Manager. Ascom provided a wide range of specialist radio communications, such as for use in explosive atmospheres (Mines, Refuelling etc.) Ascom UK also sold a transportable SX10 Trunked Radio System to the Formula One Motor Racing organisation. The SX10 replaced an existing system which had a large number of separate UHF Channels and continually had problems locating on which channel a person was actually operating. The SX10 gave the F1 organisation the ability to contact specific individuals or groups easily as well as to make and receive phone calls.

Rod was a very good and caring work colleague and both myself and my wife Christine were lucky to have known him as a friend.

I have been advised by Jill (Rod's wife) that the funeral will be at South Oxfordshire Crematorium, Garford, Abingdon, OX13 5PA on Monday 28th September at 2 p.m.

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If anyone has more information regarding Rod's career with the Directorate could they please send me an email or use the feedback form.

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