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Business Systems on the History-Trail of Old Voice Recorders
Our thanks to the Senior Comms Officer at the 'North Queensland Air Ambulance' and 'Long Range Dingo Patrol' command centre, for this picture of a Racal Recorder ICR-32.
The Australians are a practical bunch and combine the command and control of these two rural services because they cover the same geographical territory of about 1,500 square miles. The air ambulance is a sort of low cost flying doctor service whereas the dingo patrol uses seriously equipped Land Cruisers to monitor the outback's 700-mile dog proof fence, keeping it in good repair and culling dingos along the way. Just like air traffic controllers, the dispatchers have little room for error, as sending the wrong response unit has repercussions. Luckily, there have been less than half a dozen incidents in total - the dingo patrol on one occasion failed to recover a seriously injured stockman but the nurses on the air ambulance faired better, taking out 4 dingos on a single sortie.
For the technically inclined the picture shows an ICR-32 with dual decks and 'wrap capstan drives'. The large box sitting on top is known as a 'time-code-generator' (that's Racal speak for 'clock'). Our resident ex-Racal super-tech Andy Hogan, confirms this is indeed a southern hemisphere unit, the giveaway being that the loaded spools run from right to left thereby working in harmony with the earth's rotational influence which is reversed at southern latitudes.
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