The Pye PF1 won the contract for the first standard police personal radio. The
specification originally called for a single unit radio with 3 channels and VHF,
the introduction of a two piece unit and UHF therefore seems to be somewhat odd,
however there was increasing political pressure to provide the police service
with a personal radio with a scene in parliament where an MP lambasted the
government for failing to provide the police with suitable equipment and pointed out that
even midwives in Cambridge were using personal radios, these also happened to be Pye
PF1s.
A number of trials took place with a number of sets and with the PF1 in
particular in the city of London and Glasgow city
police areas and the PF1 was found to provide good coverage inside police vehicles
and buildings. Providing frequencies for the schemes caused some issues with the
Post office who controlled frequency allocations reluctant to provide the Home
office with more UHF frequencies unless the existing Home office civil defence
links in the 451-452/465/-466Mhz band could be shown to be fully occupied. So
the Home Office reallocated some of their existing UHF Home defence frequencies
for police use. Initially there were 20 schemes on 10 50Khz channels allocated
on a regional basis this was then increased to 23 channels as the roll out of
the system progressed.
The Metropolitan Police however were not so keen on the PF1 and their trials
found that the radio was fragile and performance below what they required and
they instead opted for a single unit Storno CQP500 at High band VHF
147/155Mhz.as their personal radio
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