A communication system for the transmission of nuclear medicine images over standard telephone lines

Results are presented of a small pilot study undertaken in The Kent and Canterbury Hospital, St Thomas' Hospital and Charing Cross Hospital, to assess the problems involved in connecting small nuclear medicine centres to a central department by standard telephone lines. Only acoustic couplers working at 300 baud were used and an image of 64 x 64 elements could be transmitted in approximately three minutes. The bit error rate was approximately one in a thousand. Apart from the serial line interface (Pound300-Pound600), the only other hardware cost was an acoustic coupler costing under Pound200. The type of image transmitted is not limited to nuclear medicine images. All images stored as a digital matrix, including computed tomography and ultrasound data could be transmitted. With a relatively modest increase in hardware costs, the baud rate could be raised to 2400 bits per second, which would result in an eight-fold reduction of transmission time to approximately 20 s per image. (U.K.)