Home Office radio was the VHF and UHF radio service provided by the British government to its prison service, emergency service (police, ambulance and fire brigade) and Home Defence agencies from around 1939. The departmental name was the Home Office Directorate of Telecommunications, commonly referred to as DTELS.
Prior to this, contact by emergency service personnel with their control rooms was made by telephone. Then in 1922 the Metropolitan Police began to install radio receivers in their vehicles. Due to telegraphy only being one way, take up was slow. By the 1970s most police and fire services had their own dedicated radio setups, and personal radios (referred to as PRs) were beginning to be rolled out to the police in most towns and cities. Home Office radio was furthered towards the end of the Cold War, with having a communications network that was independent of the then Post Office deemed a necessity should Britain come under attack from nuclear weapons.
Radio schemes run by DTELS consisted of ten wireless depots throughout England, Scotland and Wales, supplemented further by around sixty outstations. Ten regions were designated along the same regional boundaries as the Home Defence were, and within each region was a wireless telegraph station. The Home Office allocated four-character call signs beginning with M2 to every police and fire service, with respective control rooms starting and ending every transmission with said call sign. An oddity of the system was that call signs were often spoken as letters rather than phonetically: "MP" would be said as "Em-Pee" rather than "Mike Papa". This varied between regions.
Regions England - Regions 2 to 10 excluding 8,
Scotland - Region 1,
Wales - Region 8.
Police radio codes PNC code HO Radio code Police force 52 QP Avon and Somerset Constabulary 40 VA Bedfordshire Police 93 BX British Transport Police 35 VB Cambridgeshire Constabulary 84 AH Police Scotland (formerly Central Scotland Police) 07 BA Cheshire Constabulary 48 CP City of London Police 17 LZ Cleveland Police 03 BB Cumbria Constabulary 30 NA Derbyshire Constabulary 50 QB Devon and Cornwall Constabulary 55 QC Dorset Police 70 AJ Police Scotland (formerly Dumfries & Galloway Constabulary) 11 LA Durham Constabulary 63 WH Heddlu Dyfed Powys Police 42 VG Essex Police 78 ZT Police Scotland (formerly Fife Constabulary) 53 QL Gloucestershire Constabulary 82 UB Police Scotland (formerly Grampian Police) 06 CK Greater Manchester Police 61 WO Heddlu Gwent Police 44 HC Hampshire & Isle of Wight Constabulary 41 VH Hertfordshire Constabulary 16 XH Humberside Police 46 KA Kent Police 04 BD Lancashire Constabulary 33 NL Leicestershire Constabulary 32 NC Lincolnshire Police 76 ZH Police Scotland (formerly Lothian & Borders Police) 05 CH Merseyside Police 01 MP Metropolitan Police (also 02) 02 GT Metropolitan Police (special events) 24 MD Ministry of Defence Police 36 VK Norfolk Constabulary 34 NG Northamptonshire Police 10 LB Northumbria Police 12 XN North Yorkshire Police 60 WA Heddlu North Wales Police 31 NH Nottinghamshire Police 62 WL Heddlu South Wales Police 14 XS South Yorkshire Police 21 YF Staffordshire Police 74 AS Police Scotland (formerly Strathclyde Police) 37 VL Suffolk Constabulary 45 HJ Surrey Police 47 KB Sussex Police 80 ZS Police Scotland (formerly Tayside Police) 43 HB Thames Valley Police 23 YJ Warwickshire Police 22 YK West Mercia Police 20 YM West Midlands Police 13 XW West Yorkshire Police 54 QJ Wiltshire Police
Airwave In 1991 the Directorate of Telecommunications officially changed its name to DTELS and four years later became a private sector company following a trade sale to National Transcommunications Limited (NTL).
By the last quarter of 2006 police forces had migrated radio networks from the UHF frequencies to TeTRa on the Airwave network, followed by ambulance services in 2007 and fire services in 2010. Airwave now has a nationwide network of more than 3,000 sites and provides secure voice and data communications to over 300 public safety organisations.
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