HUNTING A CAR

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 16, 19 January 1924, Page 22

HUNTING A CAR

To test the effectiveness of radio for llio1 purpose of tracking criminals an interesting experiment was recently carried out by the British Broadcasting Company. The broadcasting station, at Marconi House, 2LO, announced that the "criminals" had escaped from 2LO in> Daimler and B.^.A. cars,' the cars having been sent over previously selected routes with instructions to 'go fairly slowly through towns and villages. Five minutes after the start the first car was hailed and received the , thumbs-up signal, showing that it had been identified. At each, centre of habitation numbers of listeners 'were waiting, ..and. it is suggested that had the chase been in earnest the car, would have got no further than the city, for it seemed that half the inhabitants had come out in response to the appeal. The car was hailed by solitary listeners in the most unexpected and out-of-the-way places. At Baldcock, one gentleman had taken the hunt seriously, and followed the car for many miles before he shaken off at a byroad. ' Tho 'experiment was a distinct success, and shows another of the possible services of radio to the police. Accounts of such services, however, fail to indicate that radio, might prove of much service to the criminal also.