UK Vintage Radio Repair and Restoration Discussion Forum - View Single Post

G6Tanuki · 13th Apr 2019, 9:10 am

Historically there have been various central purchasing operations who did procurement for Government agencies; they would issue the spec, arrange the manufacture, and handle the flow of your tax-money to pay for it all. In the 1970s it was "The Crown Suppliers", before that it was a division of the Property Services Agency (PSA) - who also supplied lots of stuff to the Post Office which was then still a Crown body. Prior to that we had the Ministry of Works and the Ministry of Supply doing it.

I guess whichever of these was active at the time would have contracts for quite a bit of tape: not just for GCHQ but for the likes of the emergency services (recording 999 calls) and airports (recording ground-to-air comms). I remember ordering 80-column computer punch-cards via Property Services Agency contract!

13th Apr 2019, 9:10 am	#7
G6Tanuki Dekatron Join Date: Apr 2012 Location: Wiltshire, UK. Posts: 13,998	Re: Ilford Tape & GCHQ Historically there have been various central purchasing operations who did procurement for Government agencies; they would issue the spec, arrange the manufacture, and handle the flow of your tax-money to pay for it all. In the 1970s it was "The Crown Suppliers", before that it was a division of the Property Services Agency (PSA) - who also supplied lots of stuff to the Post Office which was then still a Crown body. Prior to that we had the Ministry of Works and the Ministry of Supply doing it. I guess whichever of these was active at the time would have contracts for quite a bit of tape: not just for GCHQ but for the likes of the emergency services (recording 999 calls) and airports (recording ground-to-air comms). I remember ordering 80-column computer punch-cards via Property Services Agency contract!