Movies involving monitoring

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OttawaBob

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A similar thread may have been previously posted. If so, my apologies.

I just caught the last part of a movie called He Walked By Night, an old one from back in the forties. It was about a thief who monitored police radio frequencies and was always 1 step ahead of them as a result. It got me thinking.

How many other movies have been made which involve radio monitoring? I'm sure there are a few.

Any contributions?

Do you think it casts a bad light over those of us who are casual monitors?
 

ElroyJetson

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DO NOT ASK ME FOR HELP PROGRAMMING YOUR RADIO. NO.
I remember a couple but generally they're kind of an embarrassment to the radio community.

Early 80s movie, BMX Bandits, Nicole Kidman's first movie. Kids are stealing Motorola MX 350 portable radios from the local police department's warehouse and using them to communicate with each other.

How they're able to do that without batteries on the radios has always mystified me.

The Manhattan Project, Val Kilmer makes a nuke as a science project. When surrounded by government thugs wearing black, said thugs have MX-360R radios held right up to their ears to listen. Which is a fine way to lose the use of one hand and also quite possibly end up with a ringing ear. Stupid.

In Tremors, what's-his-face has a ham radio station in his workshop.

In The Incredibles, one of the characters monitors police radio traffic from a radio in his car.

Short Circuit, Motorola Micor radio head and microphone mounted on the dashboard of the van, but
with no cables connecting it to anything.

Radio usage in movies is rarely depicted with any accuracy.
 

n1das

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In a couple of scenes in The Fast and The Furious movie, an old crystal scanner is seen scanning away. Some radio chatter is briefly heard while the scanner never stops scanning.


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INDY72

Monitoring since 1982, using radios since 1991.
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The Taxi Chase Scene.... I find it retardedly stupidly laugh filled dumbness. It sure as heck don't work that way fellas! Nice for fill in a gap to look high techish, but nope.
 

n1das

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I recall scanning being involved in a few episodes of the original Hawaii Five-O series. Five-O figured out that the perp was monitoring and they just worked smarter to eventually catch the perp.

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SCPD

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Death Wish II
The protagonist borrowed a scanner from a news department in order to monitor the "tac squad" while hunting down one of his targets. If I recall correctly, it was a boat anchor of a scanner.

Found it. Starts at around 54:00 of this clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjuLRSyTq2g
 
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tglendye

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I remember watching a movie years ago and a character was using a Sony scanner. I didn't even know Sony had made any scanners, until I Googled it after that. I don't recall the name of the movie.
 

INDY72

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Sony had the best airband scanner ever. Was a brick but did VHF high and air like a boss!

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DJ11DLN

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Not a movie but I remember a couple of episodes of "Adam-12" where scanners were featured. In one there was a "buff" who followed the guys around trying to be a wanna-be cop. He eventually messed up and got himself arrested. In another a couple of SJW photographers were using a scanner to track the guys, trying to catch them in a situation where they were operating outside of guidelines or breaking laws. Can't recall how that one was resolved. There may have been others.

Obviously, scanner users weren't portrayed in a very favorable light in either of these.
 

Nasby

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There was a CHiPS episode when Ponch got hurt and was in the hospital.
John and the co-workers pitched in and got him a handheld scanner to listen to while he was recuperating.
 

wbswetnam

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In the 1976 movie "Mother, Jugs and Speed", private ambulance companies would monitor the fire department and each other's radio dispatchers to beat the competition to a scene.
 

scan18

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Out for Justice (1991, Steven Segal). The "bad guy" has a local chop shop get him a Buick Grand National GNX and they install a Pro2025 scanner in it. I remember at the time I had the same scanner, and I wanted one of those Grand Nationals so bad!
 

CrabbyMilton

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I recall one episode of THE JEFFERSON'S. George was long overdue to come home and they couldn't contact him. Bentley brings his scanner over and they are listening to all of the calls. Finally, Weezy tells him to turn it off because the calls were too scary.
 
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