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Directorate of Telecommunications
EQUIPMENT; MADE
By: Steven R Cole
... continued from page 4
Following a period of Stage II trials, the Directorate published their report findings in March 1979.
The report concluded with recommendations highlighting the need for the Directorate, with the active co-operation of the police service, to proceed with the development of production versions of the mobile data equipment packages.
Conclusions
Not having any direct knowledge of the MADE, it is not entirely clear to me from reading the information in the Intercom Journals, or the March 1979 closing report, as to how successful the project was in meeting its stated aims, or influencing industry in the development of mobile data systems for the police service.
However, I can say that by 1983 when I took up the post of Chief Technician (Systems) at Maintenance Planning Group Weyhill, the development of Fire Brigade Mobilising and Communications Systems using 300 baud data over shared area wide Brigade voice channels, had significantly moved on within the Directorate.
Furthermore, I seem to recall that the Directorate was responsible for preparing a specification and tendering on behalf of London Fire Brigade for an area wide Mobile Data System somewhere around 1987.
I was also aware early on in my new post that there were many individuals in the Directorate, particularly at Horseferry House, who had amassed an excellent understanding of mobile data principles, coupled with sound factual knowledge gained from systems which the Directorate had previously purchased, as well as the outcome of various field trials.
I suspect that a lot of the knowledge in these areas alone came about through the ground breaking work arising from MADE in the previous decade.
Acknowledgement:
The pictures are believed to be copyright of ‘The Marconi Company’ and were amongst papers recovered from the Home Office Directorate of Telecommunications Technical Library in 1994.
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