Biophone

The Biophone was a combination voice and telemetry radio communications system commonly used in the 1970s and 1980s by field emergency paramedics (typically firefighters or ambulance attendants) to talk to the doctors supervising them from a hospital base station, and also to transmit EKG rhythms. It was this sort of communications equipment that first made emergency field paramedic programs practical.

The Biophone was produced by the Biocom Company. Motorola produced the Apcor which was very similar to the Biophone. The Biophone 3502 used the internals of a General Electric PE series handheld radio mounted into an orange case, which was made of an orange laminated fiberglass with aluminum trim. The Biophone had an internal rechargrable battery which powered the sensor equipment, the PE Handheld and an amplifier that raised the transmitting power to 50 watts. The unit had a connector for a vehicle-mounted antenna for when driving in an ambulance because signal could not penetrate through the steel skin of the ambulance. The Biophone could have any 6 (the maximum that could fit in the PE radio) of the 10 UHF "Medical" duplex channels in the 450-470 MHz range. This allowed flexibility in the overall system. The battery was a NiCad which could charge in only 15 minutes. This Biophone radio can be seen throughout the series of Emergency! being carried by the fictional characters Johnny and Roy. The actual Biophone 3502 radio that was used on Emergency! was donated to the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History because of its public service. It is now on display in Washington,D.C..