Mike McDonald
PCS Member
I can't help but notice in all the beautiful old pictures provided by Steve Loftin, Tony Karsnia and many-many others the lack of any antennas on a good portion of the "in-service" ambulances shown especially the Canadian ones. Of the ones that do, a majority seem to have low-band systems followed by a few with VHF Antennas. Our small town where I grew up (Fallbrook-San Diego County, CA., and where our 1954 Henney-Packard Senior Ambulance was purchased brand new) was lucky enough to have a County-Wide (Shared) VHF Repeater System as early as the mid 50's that was considered "state of the art" back then. In the pre-911 days there if you were reporting a fire or needed an ambulance you would call the single volunteer station in town on a regular phone. If no one was there, the town siren would automatically activate after a few rings and keep cycling until a volunteer arrived at the station and picked the phone up that usually wasn't too long as they mostly worked at nearby businesses all over town including the local (Berry-Bell) Mortuary.
I am curious if any of you have stories of communications in the "good old days" and in paticuliar how the Funeral Homes that had Ambulances, got their calls, communicated with Local Fire Deparments, PD's, Highway Patrols, Hospitals etc., often without any radios and-or even the earliest versions of Low-Band Simplex and VHF / IMTS Phones, etc. of the early 60-70's. MM
I am curious if any of you have stories of communications in the "good old days" and in paticuliar how the Funeral Homes that had Ambulances, got their calls, communicated with Local Fire Deparments, PD's, Highway Patrols, Hospitals etc., often without any radios and-or even the earliest versions of Low-Band Simplex and VHF / IMTS Phones, etc. of the early 60-70's. MM