Emergency communications administration specialist Rob Radtke joins us from Houston, Texas and gives us a brief history and overview of two-way radio in this first installment in a short series we’re calling On the Radio with Rob.

Contact Rob or any of our experts to discuss custom two-way communications and wireless security-technology solutions in St. Louis, Southeastern Missouri, Southern Illinois, Chicago, San Antonio, and Houston.

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VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Mark: Hi, and welcome to the family! Today we're joined by Rob Radtke in Houston, Texas for the first installment in a short series we're calling "On the Radio with Rob."

Hi, Rob, and thanks for joining us. You've seen a lot in your thirty years of experience in the public safety and communications world — from your time as a firefighter, a police officer, and an arson investigator, to your most recent role in emergency communications administration. Can you give us a real quick history of two-way radios, to start with?

Rob: Sure! Hi, Mark, thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Two-way radio goes back quite a ways — all the way back to the early 1900s in fact. The very first two-way technology was utilized in the commercial and military ships and utilized the old morse code or telegraphies — or, you know, just telegraph information — so it got information back and forth wirelessly that way. The very first truly mobile two-way setup was developed in Australia in 1923 for the Victoria police, and they had equipment that was so large that it filled up the rear of — the transmitter and receiving unit, or "set" (radio set) — filled up the back of an entire police car. And it's gotten a whole lot better now, and the first one in... Obviously. The first one in the U.S. was Bayonne, New Jersey — believe it or not — and their police department successfully operated a two-way system between one central point and multi points — or in the vehicles. So it was kind of a long stretch to get to where we are now, but it's been around for a long time, and it's still a very valid technology.

Mark: Can you tell us a little bit about the types of two-way radio systems that are available, like right now in this day and age?

Rob: Sure! I mean it really runs the gamut of "conventional" versus "trunked" — which "trunked" is something that folks — a lot of folks — aren't going to use. "Conventional," folks are more usually more familiar with, and it operates on fixed radio frequency channels; whereas trunked sort of does what... does something called "frequency hopping," and it picks open channels to talk to — or talk on. And you also have "simplex" versus "duplex," which is... uses a... simplex uses a single channel for transmit and receive. So you think C.B. radios, walkie-talkies, things like that — that you may have utilized as a child, or your kids use now, even. And it's a kind of... it's a kind of like a... or even kind of what the aircrafts — some aircraft use now. Where duplex channels, on the other hand, is another kind of system that exists that allows you to transmit and receive on two different channels — so you'll be able to talk on one and listen on another — and it works in the very same way. And there's hybrids of that as well. And it includes "analog" and "digital," which — you know — digital allows for more information, and you can utilize text messaging — along those lines — you can use, like, text messaging on digital radios; where analog, that's not necessarily available.

Mark: Well, thanks, Rob. What would you say to someone who'd like to know more about two-way radios and which technology would be right for them?

Rob: Well, they can can reach out to me or any of our communications experts at warnerfamilybrands.com and we can have a quick conversation and figure out what it is that they need, and get them some top quality, budget-friendly equipment for... in a hurry, and especially with some of our... some of the brands that we carry. So just reach out to us at any point, and we can help you get what you need.

Mark: Thanks again, Rob, for that quick overview. We'll do a deeper dive starting with our next segment in the series, so keep an eye out for that. But that's it for now! Stay tuned for more news and views you can use.