I'm really surprised you've believed this downlink story.
Perhaps you can ask the 'horse' who it actually was that said no. Was it the TFO or control room dispatcher or the control room supervisor? A date would be handy and whoever the horse is would easily be able to tell you that.
I would be more than happy to get the truth out of this as despite what anyone might think of NPAS, those of us at the coal face are still driven to provide an effective service to the officers on the ground. After all, let no one forget that TFO's were once those officers on the ground and maybe one day will be again. Making up stories is well out of order.
Right then; why did they reply to the request or does the 'airwave package' come as standard
I wonder if along with the 'downlink package' & 'airwave package' there is also a 'camera package', 'Thermal package', 'Mapping package', 'nitesun package', 'sky shout package', 'casevac package' etc.
Maybe when it comes to the beginning of the financial year, each force has to decide between the SE, HSE, or Sport variant of their agreement. Perhaps in future they could even ask for the ac to be adblue'd to keep the costs down further
You must have heard that the truth is stranger than fiction, there is no need for the fiction
