WIRELESS FOR POLICE

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 81, 2 October 1924, Page 6

WIRELESS FOR POLICE

SYDNEY AND MELBOURNE

STRIKING SUCCESSES.

(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

SYDNEY, 25th September. The past few days have provided two instances of the value of wireless equipment for the police night patrols of Sydney and Melbourne. The latter city has adopted this method of communicating from headquarters with the motor patrol for the past year or more, but in Sydney the system was only installed a week ago, and is only on a month's trial. The aerial of the wireless is neatly cobwebbed under the hood of the police car which rushes from suburb to suburb, without any fixed plans, throughout the night. Hitherto the system has been for one of the two officers on board to ring up the headquarters by telephone at stated intervals throughout the night, when any instructions were communicated to the patrol. Now, however, one of the officers sits with the receivers always to his ears, and at any moment throughout the night headquarters, immediately upon receipt of information that burglars are operating at any point, or that any other happening requires the presence of the police, advises the patrol by Morse code, and the patrol at once dashes to the scene. ■

Late on Saturday night the Sydney headquarters were advised that a tram conductor, while walking to his home in one of the suburbs, had been set upon by footpads and robbed. The facts were at once tapped out on the Morse, and within half an hour two men were under arrest. The .Melbourne case, although it turned out to be a falso alarm,- was even more striking, and drew an expression of warm appreciation from ex-Senator Keating, to whose home in Walsh street, South Yarra, the patrol made a dash from' South Melbourne during the week-end, in response to a wireless message received that burglars were operating in the dwelling. It appears that tho seventeen-year-old daughter of Mr. Keating heard- men's voices in an adjoining flat, which she knew was not occupied, as the tenants had left for the country. Investigating, she discovered that the door, which was usually open, was shut. She communicated her suspicions to her brother, who advised her to notify the police. A telephone message • was dispatched to Russell street, and in duo course the night patrol received tho message from tho Domain wireless station. At tho time they wero cruising about on the boundary of Port Melbourne and South Melbourne, and although several miles away from the scene of tho supposed robbery, it only took them about five minutes to reach the house. In tho moantime,' however, Mr. Keating had ascertained that his daughter's fears wero groundless. Before Senior Constablo P. Ryan and the other constables took their departure Mr. Keating took the opportunity of congratulating them on the efficiency of tho patrol system. He said, he had no idea that the cars could work with such precision and promptitude.

So successful has tho system proved in Melbourne that during the past week the equipment of cars and apparatus has been much improved, and it is estimated that two minutes should be tho average time_ between the sending of a call to a police wireless patrol car and the arrival of the car at its destination. A.new wireless receiving set was satisfactorily worked with a second patrol car. There are now two cars regularly .patrolling the metropolitan area, both capable of receiving wireless messages and of a speed of about 80 miles an hour.

Formerly the average time to reach ,a destination has been about four minutes. Senior Plain Clothes Constablo F. W. Downie, in charge of the wireless section, is confident that this time will be reduced by half at least.

One car will operate north of the Yarra and one south, though in the event of a message being received while a car is near tho boundary, reporting trouble in the other patrol's area, there will be nothing to prevent both cars visiting the scene.

There is already keen competition between the two patrols, and great eagerness is displayed in securing positions in this branch.