Backhaul, May 2014: the industry 25 and 10 years ago

Backhaul takes you on a trip down memory lane as we look at the state of the industry 25 and 10 years ago.

25 YEARS AGO. The cover of the June/July 1989 issue of What's New in Radio Communications featured the Radius P-200 synthesised FM two-way radio from Motorola. This unit came with a field-programmable EEPROM, choice of power levels and rechargeable NiCad battery.

An article from Dr I.T. Wielinga from Phillips described the use of thin-film tape head technology for communications logging - obviously well before the era of cheap digital storage - and Phil Beavis from Marconi described how to lower the cost of radio testing.

Readers also learned how the Royal Flying Doctor Service had a network of Outpost Radio Base Stations using HF, but that satellite was on the horizon as the way of the future.

Also making news was the first trans-Pacific digital optical fibre cable between the USA, Guam and Japan; and the world's smallest two-way satcom unit, available through OTC, which used a 30 cm conical antenna attached to a laptop computer. Did they really have laptops back then?

10 YEARS AGO. Icom IC-F50/F60 series VHF/UHF handhelds graced the cover of the May/June 2004 issue of Radio Comms Asia-Pacific. While the 1980s-vintage Motorola Radius weighed more than 800 g, the Icoms weighed in at just 280 g.

Readers of this issue learned all about: the comms systems linking British embassies around the world; a paperless order tracking and sales system in use with a transport company; and RFID tags built into rubbish bins to help local councils improve their waste management practices.

Of great interest was a report on the sale of the Victorian state government's National Response Centre to Origin Energy. The centre was the point of contact for people advising of gas leaks anywhere in the state