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TSCM
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Audiotel equipment on this website
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In 1970, Tracey left MI6 and founded a series of companies
to market his products. Some of these firms are known to have
been MI6 fronts. In 1972, Tracey
founded Allen International Ltd., with his former MI6 colleague
Charles Bovill as director.
The company's first product was a
non-linear junction detector (NLJD),
known as the Broom.
Bovill invented the NLJD during
World War II (WWII) for finding corrosion
on airplanes, and had perfected it during his days as a TSCM
expert with MI6 in the early 1960s.
An NLJD can be used to find bugs regardless of whether or not
they are actively tranmitting.
Allen International went bankrupt in 1974, after which its product
portfolio was taken over by Security Research Ltd. — yet another
one of Tracey's creations.
In 1975, Tracey founded Technical Security Ltd.
in London (UK). The first product sold by the company was the
staircase receiver, which by now was known as the
Scanlock.
In New Scientist of July 1975, it was announced that it would
be available for GBP 940 [8]. It was soon followed by the
Scanlock Mark I, Mark II and Mark III.
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Audiotel International Ltd
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Just three years later, in 1978, Tracey
founded Audiotel International Ltd. at City Road in London.
Audiotel had taken over the product line from
Technical Security, and soon launched the now famous
Scanlock Mark VB.
It instantly settled Audiotel's name in the field of
electronic countermeasures (ECM).
Unfortunately, Tracey had failed to
register a patent for his staircase receiver, as a result of which
the Scanlock was soon copied by other manufacturers [9].
For many years, the company used the silhouette of an eavesdropping man
as the company logo.
In the US, Audiotel was represented by
Technical Services Agency (TSA),
founded by former CIA expert Glenn Whidden,
With his technical wizardry, Whidden enhanced the
Scanlock Mark VB with an automatic
memorizing scanner named COMPUSCAN.
It converted the Scanlock Mark VB
into a correlator, a technique the CIA has been researching since the
early 1960s. Audiotel modified the Scanlock Mark VB
in such a way that the COMPUSCAN
could directly be connected to it.
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As Tracey was more of an engineer than
a business manager, he teamed up with Lansing Bagnall in Basingstoke,
who took a major interest in the company by buying 70% of the shares.
This way, Tracey could concentrate on the
development of the Scanlock and a range of new products, while Lansing Bagnall
took care of marketing, accounts and company management.
In the early 1980s, Audiotel started the development of the next generation
of bug detectors, resulting in the cosmetically improved – partly digital –
Scanlock 2000. In Europe it was an
instant succes and it soon replaced the
Scanlock Mark VB.
Unfortunately, the Scanlock 2000 was missing
a connector for the COMPUSCAN,
as a result of which the Scanlock Mark VB
kept dominating the US market for several more years.
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After a conflict between Tracey and
Lansing Bagnall, Tracey gradually began loosing interest in the company
and fell out with the major shareholder. In 1987, he left Audiotel after which
Lansing Bagnall decided to sell off Audiotel altogether.
They eventually sold Audiotel to Andrew Martin, but did this in
such a way that Tracey (still 30% owner)
was left empty handed.
Soon thereafter, Martin moved Audiotel to a new premises in Corby
(Northamptonshire, UK).
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In 1989, Audiotel got access to the latest developments in
Non-Linear Junction Detectors (NLJD)
by acquiring Security Research Ltd.
from Cray Defence Group. In 1974, Security Research had taken
over the product line from Allen International, which included the
Broom NLJD technology developed by
Charles Bovill.
After the takeover, Bovill helped with the development of the
Broom ECM, which was introduced
in 1990, and then retired at the age of 79.
➤ More about Charles Bovill
Like Tracey,
Bovill had failed to patent his
inventions, as a result of which the Broom
was copied by other manufacturers, who subsequently improved the
design and registered patents for these improvements. A critical
example is the use of the 3rd harmonic, which was patented by
Microlab/FXR. It blocked Audiotel from using the 3rd harmonic
to improve its NLJD. In 1996, after the patents had
expired, Audiotel was finally able to lauch the
SuperBroom.
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After company director Andrew Martin's untimely death in 1997,
Audiotel was acquired from the trustees of the estate
on 31 January 2003 by London & Boston Investments plc (L&B)
for a total amount of GBP 1,800,000.
A year later (2004) Audiotel became a full
subsidiary of PSG Solutions, another L&B acquisition.
In 2004, the company reported a turnover of nearly GBP 3 million [4].
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On 2 September 2015, Audiotel International was acquired by Tioga Ltd.,
with whom the company already had a good business relationship, as they
were their main manufacturer [11]. Tioga is one of the leading
privately-owned contract electronics manufacturers (CEM) in the UK.
With the takover, both Audiotel International Ltd.
and Security Research Group (which it had acquired in 1989) were
liquidated. The name Audiotel International remained in use as a trademark however.
In 2017, the Audiotel International business was merged with Telemiss,
and Audiotel became part of the Simpatica Group, still trading under the
name Audiotel International [12].
In 2020, Tioga stopped developing new devices for the Audiotel product line,
and from 1 January 2023 onward, the former Audiotel website was no longer
avaiable. The Audiotel design team has since been fully integrated with Tioga,
and now develops designs for other Tioga customers as well [14].
Today (2025), Tioga still produces the SuperBroom
and Delta-V as OEM products, which are
available from other suppliers such as Hyperion Defence Solutions [15].
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Below is a timeline with important events in the history of Audiotel,
starting with the two predecessors of the company: (1) Technical Security Ltd.
(1975) and (2) Allen International Ltd (1972)
Technical Security Ltd. was founded by Lee Tracey,
and marketed the Scanlock receiver which he had invented in 1962.
In 1978, Tracey founded Audiotel as the successor to Technical Security.
Allen International was founded by
Charles Bovill, and marketed the
Broom NLJD which he had invented during WWII.
The company was succeeded by Security Research, which was acquired by
Audiotel in 1989.
It gave Audiotel access to the NLJD-technology developed by
Bovill.
in 2015, Audiotel and Security Research Group were both taken over by
Tioga Ltd. and then liquidated.
Tioga – a contract equipment manufacturer (CEM) – was founded in 1996,
and was already the manufacturer of the majority of Audiotel's products.
It kept using the Audiotel and Scanlock brand names.
After 2020, no new Audiotel products were developed, and on 1 January 2023
the Audiotel website became defunct. In 2025, Tioga was still manufacturing
the SuperBroom and
Delta-V as OEM products,
which are now sold under a different brand name [14].
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- Initial Audiotel website: www.audiotel-int.com
October 1990 - 8 September 2012. Retrieved via WayBack Machine. May 2013.
- Second Audiotel website: www.audiotel-support.com
October 2007- August 2012. Wayback snapshot of 11 February 2008.
- Third Audiotel website: www.audiotel-international.com
WayBack snapshot of 17 February 2019 1.
- London & Boston Investments plc, Acquisition of PSG Solutions 2
8 June 2004.
- Audiotel International Ltd., Full colour sales brochure
March 1996. 16 pages, full colour. © Copyright Audiotel.
- Audiotel International Ltd., Audiotel International has moved 2
Audiotel Newsletter, February 2013.
- Paul Reuvers and Marc Simons, Interview with Lee Tracey and personal correspondence
Crypto Museum, 23 May 2013.
- New Scientist, Boardroom electronic warfare 2
Volume 67, Number 957. 10 July 1975, p. 66.
- New Scientist, Personal surveillance devices 2
Volume 80, Number 1130. 23 November 1978, p. 601.
- The Telegraph, Charles Bovill Obituary
9 May 2001. Retrieved May 2013.
- Audiotel, Audiotel International acquired by Tioga Limited
Audiotel website. WayBack snapshot 12 September 2015.
- Last Audiotel website, www.audiotel-international.com
Retrieved October 2020. WayBack snapshot 17 July 2019.
No longer available from 1 January 2023.
- Audiotel on Tioga website
Visited 2 May 2025.
- Barry Stephen, Personal crrespondence
Tioga Design Services, Audiotel International, 2 May 2025.
- Hyperion Defence Solutions
LinkedIn 2024. Visited 2 May 2025.
➤ Hyperion website
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Although this website has been active since October 2000, it used to
be redirected to audiotel-support [2]. Since the beginning of 2013,
it is used as the main web address, whilst the others have been discontinued.
Today (2025) it is redirected to the Tioga website.
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This link is no longer available.
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Any links shown in red are currently unavailable.
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© Crypto Museum. Created: Monday 13 December 2010. Last changed: Saturday, 03 May 2025 - 06:28 CET.
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