PA Communications Ltd. is an electronic engineering company, incorporated in 1984 as company number 01859206, conceived to extend the business carried on by Photo Acoustics Ltd, which was then located in Newport Pagnell.
The tie between PA and Photo was broken in 1990, and Photo was dissolved in 2000. PA continued in a niche aviation market and has been contracted to the MOD since 1992. In house design and batch production became well established at Crownhill, M.K. during the eighties.
The choice of the two letters "P" and "A" came about by chance, in the early seventies Stanley Poole had an idea for using the Photo Acoustics name, that invoked the dual activities of "seeing" and "hearing". The company started in Fred Wellham´s typewriter repair workshop in Judge Street, Watford servicing audio visual equipment and tape recorders. The business diversified into communications with the Photo Acoustics amateur radio shop initially setting up in a large "porta-cabin" at Gowle´s Farm, subsequently "Photo", as it was known, moved to it´s new home at 58 High Street Newport Pagnell in about 1981/82, Kerry Cahill continuing "at the shop" until it closed around 2000
P.A. Communications Ltd. was incorporated 29th. October 1984 as the professional communications arm of Photo Acoustics, set up to design and manufacture communications products including voice communcations by telephone. The new venture grew and entered into a contract with Pantling Electronics to develop a message recording system with multiple access across London Underground´s large private telephone network. It combined the marketing talents from Photo Acoustics (Derek Cahill) and technical skill of Pantling Electronics (John Hart) to move to PA Communications first home at Crownhill, Milton Keynes in 1985, culminating in the first "Crownhill team" thru the eighties - with Keith Wilson, Bob Leggett, Jane Cahill, Judy Cahill (Derek´s wife), Simon Spicer, Ian Hall, Brian Holland and Chris Digby. This was a time when PA remained "out of the limelight", it´s products being either used by "bluechip companies" or the products were "badged" and resold by a couple of the well known telecoms "names".