It's just a mobile phone officer

Last Friday I wrote about the PRS attempting to extort money from yet another Dover business on the obviously specious grounds that their radio could be heard on an extremely busy road below.

Well it seems that my title implying the use of an artificial aid was rather closer to the truth that I realised.

I am indebted to a group of local amateur radio enthusiasts for drawing my attention to a formerly classified radio detection technique code-named "Rafter". Striped of the technical details, of which there was a considerable quantity - Thanks Guys - Rafter enables anyone with the proper equipment to detect an operating radio receiver at a distance and is the basis of the T.V. detector vans which once prowled our cities in large numbers.

The modern digital equivalent is a hand-held, portable device not much larger than an old style mobile phone and just as easily concealed. It is capable of detecting an operating radio or television receiver at up to twenty metres and can identify precisely which station - radio or T.V. - is being received.

Now all I need is for someone to email me a copy of the receipt and/or delivery note showing how many of these things the PRS have bought and where they got them from.