1933 First police radios installed
The first police radio system, connecting headquarters to patrol cars and patrol cars to one another, was installed in Eastchester Township, New York, by Radio Engineering Laboratories of Long Island City, New York. The township contracted with the company for one transmitter of 20 watts for the headquarters and two transmitters of 4.5 volts each for the two patrol cars. Among its other uses, the police radio system became a popular prop for radio, television, and film drama. From the basic "Calling all cars!" exclamations of early radio drama to the poignant use of police radio in the 1965 film The Chase (with Marlon Brando, Robert Redford, and Robert Duvall), the police radio system became a dramatic device as essential to twentieth-century narratives, as was the royal emissary in the days of Shakespeare.