Where were you in 1992?

We take a look back at what was happening in the Australian critical communications field 25 and 10 years ago.

25 YEARS AGO. The cover of the April/May 1992 issue of What’s New in Radio Communications featured the Motorola Syntrx Data Receiving Terminal, fully designed in Australia for use with the 50,000-plus Syntrx units then in service. The DRT had an 8-character alphanumeric display and could store 400 characters of text and 20 numbers in its telephone directory. Inside this issue, Dean Brookes, the then product manager for Nokia Telecommunications, gave an outline of the MPT1327 trunking system; and David Cooke, the then national sales and marketing manager for Radio Frequency Systems, outlined the company’s newly developed bandplan trunking receive preselector technology. We also reported on Motorola Australia being awarded ISO 9001 (AS 3901) status, with the then Victorian premier, Joan Kirner, presenting the certificate of registration to the company’s then MD, Chris Barter. OTC was working on a scrambler to improve privacy for Seaphone calls, and Qantas was set to become one of the first airlines to introduce telephones for passengers on international flights.

10 YEARS AGO. The cover of the March/April 2007 issue of Radio Comms Asia-Pacific featured the GME TX4800, 25 W VHR waterproof commercial radio; at just 70 mm deep, it was claimed to be one of the smallest such radios in Australia. The 124-channel units covered a frequency range from 148 to 1784 MHz. Also in this issue: Radio Frequency Systems’ Stéphane Klajzyngiers opined about privacy and security in an increasingly virtual world; we published a case study on the introduction of Zetron’s Acom dispatch solution at Sydney Airport; we covered the move towards multiband antennas and IP over radio; and we also covered the 2007 industry dinner, at which ARCIA was launched. Ben Czerniewicz (Polar Electronics) was presented with the Jonathan Livingston Award, Steve Reining (JRD) received the Technical Excellence Award and Ross Terranova (Crosscom) was given the Sales Professional Award.