I used to worship my Bearcat 300.

Astrogoth13 · Feb 3, 2018

It did everything a kid could want. And it looked so cool doing it too. I would buy a used one off eBay now if there was anyone to listen to but there's not. Cell phones, digital, trunking. There's 10 Million people in this county and my HP-2 has a hard time finding anyone to listen to. Anyone worth listening to that is. Times have changed and not all for the better.

What does the Group Mind think of the BC300?

marksmith · Feb 3, 2018

Astrogoth13 said:
It did everything a kid could want. And it looked so cool doing it too. I would buy a used one off eBay now if there was anyone to listen to but there's not. Cell phones, digital, trunking. There's 10 Million people in this county and my HP-2 has a hard time finding anyone to listen to. Anyone worth listening to that is. Times have changed and not all for the better.

What does the Group Mind think of the BC300?

It was a great radio.

The early controllable service search as a hardware solution... a button for each service.

Also did limit search and had reasonable storage capacity. It was also one of the early synthesized frequency radios, rather than crystals.

Had 2 or 3 of them over the years. They all slowly went deaf on me.

You could still listen to some stuff on one today, but it was limited to 25-512 mz.

My HP2 radios never shut up.

Mark
536/436/ws1095/996p2/996xt/325p2/396xt/psr800/396t/HP-1/HP-2 & others

ladn · Feb 5, 2018

I still have a couple of them in the garage. I was never very fond of them though, as I didn't need the service search functions. They were on the big side for mobile use.

mule1075 · Feb 5, 2018

Mine is still going strong.

bb911 · Feb 5, 2018

I had an apparently rare 300, in that it would display out of range frequencies, but would receive within range freqs on those freqs. Bob Grove (Grove Enterprises) published a list of the freqs in his Monitoring Times publication. I can't remember a single discrete example. I do recall though, that it displayed freqs in the 300 MHz area, but received some VHF Hi for those displays.

marksmith · Feb 5, 2018

Grove Enterprises is a blast from the past. That used to be the place to go for new radios.

Mark
536/436/ws1095/996p2/996xt/325p2/396xt/psr800/396t/HP-1/HP-2 & others

milcom_chaser · Feb 5, 2018

Astrogoth13 said:
It did everything a kid could want. And it looked so cool doing it too. I would buy a used one off eBay now if there was anyone to listen to but there's not. Cell phones, digital, trunking. There's 10 Million people in this county and my HP-2 has a hard time finding anyone to listen to. Anyone worth listening to that is. Times have changed and not all for the better.

What does the Group Mind think of the BC300?

Depends on what you define as "worth" very personal in the realm of listening choices...

We had a Bearcat 210. Thought it looked cool, sounded cool, and thought it awesome that you could listening to the Forest Service radio system links
around 415Mhz. Loved the feel of the buttons, and watching the display change after hitting the enter button. Big speaker too. Even the synthesizer whine
was part of it. Legacy machine, but was sure cool unboxing it for the first time...

northzone · Feb 5, 2018

In 1969 I bought a Bearcat 210. The first real scanner that programmed with a keypad for me. I loved it. But it cost $350 which adjusted for inflation in today's market it would sell for $2,430 !!!

We get so much more for our money today with electronics. I have bought used but like new digital scanners on ebay for $125 (such as the pro-106).

lmrtek · Feb 5, 2018

Keypad programing and bullet proof front end and that entire series of scanners was outstanding.

KevinC · Feb 5, 2018

northzone said:
In 1969 I bought a Bearcat 210. The first real scanner that programmed with a keypad for me. I loved it. But it cost $350 which adjusted for inflation in today's market it would sell for $2,430 !!!

We get so much more for our money today with electronics. I have bought used but like new digital scanners on ebay for $125 (such as the pro-106).

1969??? Maybe 1979?

northzone · Feb 5, 2018

My bad. I think it was about 1975. It was right after I got out of the Army. Only makes the radio cost $1500 in today's market.

Astrogoth13 · Feb 12, 2018

I broke down and bought one off eBay a couple days ago. Now I am looking for the Service Manual or a PDF of it. Can't find it with Google. Lots of Owners Manuals but that's not what I am going to need.

Anyone have a pointer to the Service Manual? Please?

EMTJD · Feb 12, 2018

northzone said:
In 1969 I bought a Bearcat 210. The first real scanner that programmed with a keypad for me. I loved it. But it cost $350 which adjusted for inflation in today's market it would sell for $2,430 !!!

We get so much more for our money today with electronics. I have bought used but like new digital scanners on ebay for $125 (such as the pro-106).

1969? Are you sure? I remember when the 210 came out. Maybe it was 1979. In 1969 everything was crystals.

VK3RX · Feb 12, 2018

I broke down and bought one off eBay a couple days ago. Now I am looking for the Service Manual or a PDF of it. Can't find it with Google. Lots of Owners Manuals but that's not what I am going to need.

Anyone have a pointer to the Service Manual? Please?

I've just started looking for a BC-300 too, and also have had no luck locating a service manual, only schematics.

My other large base unit is a J.I.L. SX-400, which we didn't see many of here. Pix in my shack photos.

RichardKramer · Feb 12, 2018

I purchased my BC300 in 1981; drove my wife nuts watching for the UPS truck to stop each day; and I was watching the day it finally stopped. I was the first person to submit to Monitoring Times a formula of pushing buttons to change the mode to AM in the 138 - 144 MHz range. I still have the formula somewhere here in the shack. I have my 300 yet, but I have to replace a capacitor in the power supply circuit which was a cause of failure as the original cap was not large enough voltage wise. I put a carrying handle on the top of mine, mounted 8 D cells on the top, and made a mount for the Grove CVR UHF converter on the side of the scanner held on with the mobile mount to take to air shows. A bit on the heavy side, but it worked.

VK3RX · Feb 12, 2018

I still have a couple of them in the garage.

Put at least one of 'em up on ebay and make to use their GSP so we Aussies have a chance

Astrogoth13 · Feb 12, 2018

VK3RX said:
I've just started looking for a BC-300 too, and also have had no luck locating a service manual, only schematics.

My other large base unit is a J.I.L. SX-400, which we didn't see many of here. Pix in my shack photos.

The only Service Manual I could find for download was a scam and not real. Still looking.

EMTJD · Feb 19, 2018

BC-210

milcom_chaser said:
thought it awesome that you could listening to the Forest Service radio system links around 415Mhz.

Yes, the old 415 Mhz links. Specifically, 415.225. That's what we'd listen in on when we were up on Angeles Crest Hwy, actually up IN the forest area. That was the only place we'd hear the links. Very cool.

The BC-210 was my first programmable scanner. Back then, 10 channels was all I needed. Got it for half price from my local radio store because the "9" key was installed upside down (would've been an easy fix, but I guess this shop didn't know that). It was stolen. I had it on the desk in the radiology department at the hospital I worked at, and at some point I noticed it was no longer there.

n1das · Feb 19, 2018

markemtjd said:
1969? Are you sure? I remember when the 210 came out. Maybe it was 1979. In 1969 everything was crystals.

The BC210 came out around 1977. A high school friend of mine had one in late 1977. I had one around 1979. Prior to my BC210 I had a Heathkit GR-1132 8-channel crystal scanner I built myself in 1977.

I never had a BC300 but remember them. IIRC it has a vacuum fluorescent display (VFD) instead of an LED display like the BC210 had.

If I owned a BC300 today I would replace all of the time bomb electrolytic capacitors to keep it going. As for what to listen to with it, I would dedicate it to GMRS/FRS and MURS. Most local public safety stuff in my area is P25 digital now and with trunking.

pinballwiz86 · Feb 22, 2018

markemtjd said:
The BC-210 was my first programmable scanner. Back then, 10 channels was all I needed.

10 channels!? The dark ages of scanning. Lol.

I used to worship my Bearcat 300.

Member

Member

Explorer of the Frequency Spectrum

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Active Member

Other

Member

Member

Member

Thaumaturge

Member

Thaumaturge

Member

Member

Member

Member

Similar threads