Richard Lambley reports from Rio de Janeiro for TETRA TODAY

The 2016 Olympic Games, the 2014 FIFA World Cup, the 2012 Eco Summit -- there's a whole string of reasons for visiting Rio de Janeiro, and that's without even mentioning the spectacular Sugar Loaf Mountain, Copacabana and Ipanema beaches and the famous Rio Carnival. But when I flew there in August for TETRA TODAY, a quarterly magazine about radio communications from A&D Media, it was to write about radiocommunications systems.

 

TETRA is the radio technology underlying Britain's Airwave network, which  supports the police and the other emergency services -- you can see its three-pronged aerials on lattice towers all over the land. But like the mobile phone in your pocket, it's a European-developed technology that is succeeding globally. Part of TETRA TODAY's role is to provide the information that will help push that growth around the world.

 

In August it's winter in Brazil (or as close as it gets to winter), though I did manage a swim in the South Atlantic beneath a cloudy sky, on the one day when the breakers weren't seriously higher than I am. So the beaches weren't too much of a distraction from the work to be done, which was to write up three TETRA system users in the area: a large steelworks which is one of the power-plants driving the booming Brazilian economy; the commuter railway network that serves the Rio region; and the Rio police.

 

As in the UK, the police network provides secure communications for a whole range of user organisations -- from civil defence forces, the emergency medical service, the fire brigade and the prisons service to the various bodies with responsibility for crime-fighting and public order.

 

Right now, the TETRA network is an essential tool for the police in their continuing efforts to eradicate the fearsome criminal gangs and drugs empires in the shanty towns of Rio's suburban sprawl. These bases, which took root decades ago, are described as like the caves of Afghanistan, with tunnels burrowed into the hillsides and arsenals stocked with grenades, assault rifles and rocket-launchers.

 

I came away with a memory-stick full of pictures of a multi-agency invasion of one such area, when the authorities swept in with massive force, including armoured cars and helicopters. Moving in at dawn without warning (their calls on the digital TETRA network can't be intercepted by the criminals' scanners), they opened a 24-hour running battle in which drugs and weapons were seized and arrests made. The scenes would have done credit to a Hollywood action spectacular.

 

But this war on organised crime has taken a toll: over the past 14 years, more than 2000 Rio officers have been killed on duty. According to police statistics, in those years it has been more dangerous to join the Rio police than to enlist in the US Army in all the wars of the 20th century.

 

Happily, the tourist areas of Rio seem untouched by this darker aspect of the city's life; and, with a succession of international events on its calendar over the next few years, the state authorities are now determined to get a grip. So if you can't get enough of the Olympics in London next year, you'll be able to find plenty more sporting action in Rio very soon. Myself, I'm wondering what hot-spot TETRA TODAY will take me to next.

Richard Lambley is editor of TETRA TODAY and Land Mobile

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