1980s burglar system still on guard
It was a burglar-busting machine born some time in the 1980s.
The Good Neighbour Call Station is a home security network typically set up between small groups of neighbours in Whitby, Porirua, which used a UHF radio system to monitor each other’s alarms and talk via intercom.
This was before widespread web monitoring. Before almost everybody carried a cellphone.
Retiree Gail Brooks believed they were made by a selfemployed local serviceman who installed a control panel intercom, complete with little lights for each house so you would know who was in trouble, for about $1500. It also came with a remote. The neighbourhood network has largely fallen away over the years but you can still see the aerials dotted around the suburb – they sit like little white witch’s hats atop people’s homes.
The alarms also detected movement. One time, a house was being burgled a few doors up from Brooks’ place and the shared alarm sounded ‘‘a terrible noise’’. The neighbours jumped on the intercom and into action.
‘‘About five of us took off up there in a minute or two.’’ The burglar scarpered. Brooks hasn’t heard a voice through it in years but the power light – supported through the mains and backed up with batteries – is still on.
People have moved away – in at least one case replaced with a new family who don’t know what the heck the thing with all the buttons stuck on the old laundry wall is. Two neighbours, the last left in another network down a nearby street, claim their ones still work.
But the need remains. Latest police figures for the year ending in May showed there were 49,495 residential burglaries around the country. About 7.5 out of 10 were residential and most happened in the early afternoon.
Brooks’ neighbour, who didn’t wish to be named, said it had been a great system for as long as everyone kept an eye on it.
And emergency services could use the UHF signal to warn people of trouble. ‘‘It was really good on lifestyle blocks because it could work up to a kilometre away.’’
Another time, someone’s alarm went off and all the voices coming through the wall must have spooked the burglar because they took off and left all the loot spread out on a bed.
He has a modern alarm now but he feels people are less likely to react if it goes off.
Some might even be more annoyed by it than anything.
Electro Gard security company owner Chris Patterson said he hadn’t seen the things in years but ‘‘they were a good idea at the time’’.