In 1928 one of the most important tools in Law Enforcement was created. Imagine patrolling the 1920's gangland streets of Detroit and not knowing a bank robbery is going on right around the corner. By the time you are aware of what is going on, the bad guys already have a large head start. Through the years of 1921 - 1927 three Detroit police officers experimented with regular radio sets they had placed in the back of a model T patrol car. These three officers had come upon the most important life line in Law Enforcement, of any government level, now used today. At first these radios had to share the same stations with the regular radio program broadcasts. This obviously caused quite a few problems. A patrol officer had to listen to a standard radio broadcast which then would be interrupted by a dispatcher or you as a citizen would be listening to a big band tune when all of a sudden a police dispatcher starts rambling off information. Some of these interruptions would lose the signal, become full of static or pick back up the regular radio programs. In 1927, to improve the reception problem, officer Kenneth Cox and an engineering student, Robert Batts, improved the receiver. In 1928 W8FS radio station had been created and began regular police broadcasts. Shortly after most police stations across the nation jumped aboard and created their own systems.
For more information: http://www.ieee.org/web/aboutus/history_center/one_way.html
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