Backhaul, December 2015: the industry 25 and 10 years ago

25 YEARS AGO. The cover of the February/March 1991 issue of What’s New in Radio Communications featured the Marconi 2955A and 2955R series radio test sets, released “in response to the emergence of latest generation multitoned radios and digital pagers”. Technical articles in this issue included ‘A novel approach to electronically tuned front ends for mobile radio,’ ‘Diplexers — who needs them?’ and advances in smart antenna research. There was also an article on cellular coverage inside buildings and tunnels, plus two long articles on the merits of MPT1327 trunked systems. Finally, the hot gossip in early 1991 was the expected approval later in the year of a new telecommunications carrier to compete with Telecom and OTC. Gosh, remember when there was no competition?

10 YEARS AGO. The cover of the January/February 2006 issue of Radio Comms Asia-Pacific featured the Omnitronics IPR100 RoIP unit, designed to enable users to interconnect analog radio systems and consoles. Inside the magazine, Roger Jungerman of Agilent Technologies explained the latest thinking behind generating frequency agile and custom wavefronts, while Keith Armstrong from Cherry Clough Consultants wrote about the safety issues of dealing with EMC. In other news, we reported that the then ACA (now ACMA) had sold the last of the 3.4 GHz spectrum available in Rockhampton, and metromesh had commissioned a Wi-Fi network in Perth using RoamAD technology. If you’d been to Sculpture by the Sea in Sydney in November 2005, you’d have seen a ‘sculpture’ sponsored by Vertel. Called ‘Inside a radio wave’, the structure was designed by an architect to represent the intangible radio wave, suggesting the flow and power of electromagnetism. Finally, we reported that Bob Rogers from JRD had been presented with the Jonathan Livingston Award by the Victoria radio communications industry at its annual dinner in Melbourne.