Alright, you said ‘cops’ that is not a remark we normally use here within the United kingdom. We Brits traditionally often refer, respectfully, to our ‘boys in blue’ as ‘bobbies’ or ‘the old bill’.

Nevertheless, given that, I am about to assume that you’re wondering regarding the American police and their longstanding partnership with the Motorola Business. OK, here goes…

According to Motorola’s own internet site,

“Law enforcement communications and police communications are essential assets to the safety and security initiatives in any community. Advancing police communications allow law enforcement to be more mobile and more rapidly respond to issues. Motorola offers an extensive product line to enhance law enforcement communications with less paperwork and faster, highly reliable performance”.

Motorola built car radios as early on as the 1920’s and United states police force and the fire brigade had a number of of those, but it was not until 1930 that the 1st police car radio was developed and constructed by Motorola. According to the official internet site,

“Sales of Motorola police radios began in November 1930. Among the first customers (all in the U.S. state of Illinois) were the Village of River Forest; Village of Bellwood Police Department; City of Evanston Police; Illinois State Highway Police; and Cook County Police in the Chicago area. As more police departments used radios, challenges emerged. Rough roads, engine noises, interference, high power consumption, and frequency instability led Paul Galvin to recognize that police departments needed a radio specifically engineered for patrol cars”.

In 1936, the Motorola Law enforcement Cruiser 2 way radio was manufactured. It was successful and Motorola are a trusted brand by United states Police since. In 1939, engineer Don Mitchell fashioned the Mobile T6920 AM Transmitter. It had been another success, becoming a rational choice for that police because,

“This complete Motorola two-way radio system was priced about one-fourth as much as the competition’s, and the transmitters could be installed in cars that already had receivers in the same frequency band. In 1940 the Police Department in Bowling Green, Kentucky, became the first customer for a complete Motorola AM two-way radio system. The radios were so well-designed that Galvin Manufacturing produced the same models for several years, until FM technology replaced them in the 1940s”.

Evidently, the US law enforcement have a very protracted and abundant relationship with the Motorola Corporation. This noticeably applies to walkie-talkies also. It makes good sense to employ a trusted, easy to work with brand for successive generations of officers, who often have to respond swiftly and intuitively to various troubles.

The very first police to make use of radios were actually Australian, but subsequently the Second World War, mobile radios grew to be standard issue in the majority first world states.