DIRECTORATE OF TELECOMMUNICATIONS
EQUIPMENT
Speed Traps
page 1 of 1


Introduction
This part of the library contains a collection of scanned photographs related to speed traps, or speed enforcement in today’s jargon.

MultaNova Speed Camera
The first ten images were part of a collection retrieved from Weyhill sometime prior to its closure. They were mainly taken on the A303 at Picket Twenty near Andover and show the equipment in use at the time, and where applicable, the captured images with recorded speed and twenty-four hour time superimposed. It is thought that this was a project being run by Hampshire Police, with support from Weyhill Maintenance Unit.

from Alan Copperwaite (6/12/05 & 12/1/06)
“The speed trap equipment was called MultaNova, a Swiss device with a built-in 35mm camera. I have some further pictures taken in 1968 when we originally tested it on the Watford Bypass. I still have the original 35mm negative roll but had the pictures digitised as the film was getting old. The MultaNova was a bit ahead of its time with its capability, but the supporting tripod had a tendency to collapse in use and it ate 2x 12v lorry batteries, they lasted about 45 minutes if you were lucky!

The other two things I recall was that when we were testing the unit, it had a flash included for night use. This can be seen adjacent to the camera on the middle slimmer unit in the pictures. We decided to test this aspect for completeness just as a Hertfordshire traffic police car went past. The officers of course stopped and wanted to know all about us and the equipment but they were less than impressed by the flash because in their view it 'would seriously distract the motorist from concentrating on his driving'. Obviously times and views have now changed. In the pictures the police have actually mounted the small remote unit above the radar but this was intended to be inside the car or even further down the road with the officers stopping the vehicles.
 
When I was setting up the MultaNova equipment in the CCE lab, I was a little concerned about health hazard from the microwave unit as there was no particular indication as to the power radiated from the system. I mentioned this to my management (Norman Butler and Ray Stoodley), who mentioned it to whoever was responsible for safety. The safety officer then came and put a low plastic yellow guard across the door of the laboratory, and walked away leaving me to stew in my microwaves inside. So much for Health and Safety at that time! Shortly afterwards I went to take over the UHF lab.”

Gallery Viewer
Click on the desired photograph to see an enlarged image. Once in the viewer, use the navigation arrows to move between images.

Photograph Credits
Photographs appearing in this gallery were originally found at Weyhill MU (MultaNova) and John Leary supplied the Peta Meter images.

Many thanks to Alan Copperwaite for submitting the descriptive text used in this article. It provides a fascinating insight to aspects of work carried out by Alan during his time with the Directorate in respect of these equipments.

Marconi Peta Meter
Developed in the early 1960’s, this is thought to be the first road speed meter used by the Police Forces and maintained by the Directorate.

from Alan Copperwaite (12/1/06)
“Indeed this was the first portable speedmeter to be used in the UK. The early versions of these meters could only read up to about 80mph and had to be modified to read over 100mph. This was obviously known by many speeders, particularly bikers, as they could not be prosecuted if they went over 80mph and their speed could not be read.
 
In about 1969-70 Marconi developed a modification to the PETA meter to allow it to read up to and above 100mph and as a HO representative I went to Marconi at Chelmsford (Great Baddow) to see the mod and a new meter dial to be fitted. The people at Marconi for some reason, seemed to want to check that we, the Home Office, could satisfactorily implement the modification. So accordingly I was led to a workshop/lab where I was asked to carry out the work. I think if I had been a bit older and more sure of myself I would have told them that it was not my role to prove my competence to them! However what mainly surprised me was how poor the accommodation was for the technicians working in the Marconi workshops. They were in very old-fashioned warehouses with high ceilings, battered wooden benches, miserable lighting slightly assisted by high windows and soldering equipment we would have probably thrown away in Harrow. It was difficult to see how the technicians could achieve high quality work under those conditions and I began to realise how well we were equipped in CCE. Despite the facilities I completed the modification, apparently to Marconi's satisfaction and the change was successively put into place throughout the HO units. It was a revealing insight into the working environment at Marconi at that time.”

PETA Meta
Additional Info from Mike Brain

A programme of modification to all PETA meters in use by the Police Forces was carried out by Weyhill MU during the early-mid 1970’s to permit speeds of up to 100mph to be registered.

The credit for much of the PETA Meta work done at Weyhill goes to Norman Tuffin.

Apparently, Mike was given the opportunity to test out the first batch of meters to ensure they accurately recorded these high speeds by driving a Police Triumph 2.5pi car on Thruxton Race Circuit and placing the meters at the fastest point on the track!

Thanks for the input Mike

This page is
HTML compliant

©2007 web design by
concisewebs4u