Whats the dumbest or most unconventional thing you have done while enjoying the hobby? I was just remembering how as a teenager I used silicone to attach a steel pie plate to my parent's aluminum garage roof so I could stick a magnet mount mobile antenna on it. I then ran about 100 feet of the worst coax money could buy (and had to couple together many smaller pieces at that) into my bedroom. I did not really have the money at the time for a better antenna nor did I really know any better. The good old days....
Whats the dumbest thing.....
- Thread starter smp928s
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When I was 13-14 can't remember exactly...........found my "cb filter" (AC) had a bare wire on the cord so I wrapped scotch tape on it - plugged it in.....it was a pretty blue though.....
scrotumola
Member
While working at my first job ever some 22 years ago, I purchased a brand new Wilson 6016 sloped face VHF 16 channel 60 watt 2-way radio. It was had a 'special switch' which made it field programmable and was bad ass!! I still remember the feeling I had when I installed it in my 77 ford pickup. It replaced the 4 channel motorola motrac monster in my truck and the best thing about it--it scanned!!!
Well, not being able to afford much else and wanting to listen to my radio while at home, I went to radio shack and purchased 150 feet of lamp style cable, a 1/8" speaker plug and amplified speaker.
When I'd get home, I would unplug the speaker in back of the radio and plug in the fashioned extension speaker cable that ran from my parent's driveway all the way to my room, which couldn't be any further from my truck. Since it was an amplified speaker, I could mute or turn up the volume as need be.
Great times!
Well, not being able to afford much else and wanting to listen to my radio while at home, I went to radio shack and purchased 150 feet of lamp style cable, a 1/8" speaker plug and amplified speaker.
When I'd get home, I would unplug the speaker in back of the radio and plug in the fashioned extension speaker cable that ran from my parent's driveway all the way to my room, which couldn't be any further from my truck. Since it was an amplified speaker, I could mute or turn up the volume as need be.
Great times!
The dumbest thing I've ever done while enjoying the scanning hobby was when I lived at my parents house in 028 in CT. I stuck my magmount mobile antennas to the gutter, and when that didn't work, I put a garbage can cover on the roof and mounted them to that, It was kind of funny looking to see a Low-Band mobile, a UHF mobile, and an 800MHz mobile all hooked to a garbage can cover on the roof.
AZScanner
Member
Back when I was far too young to know better (all of 17 years old) I went out to a standoff that LASD had going in Santa Clarita. At first it was great fun, I had a front row seat to the swat team repelling into this dude's back yard from the helicopter, I got to check out the mobile command post they had back then, got to see more sheriff cars and equipment than you could shake a stick at and had the crowd of neighbors around me huddled around me and my 10 channel RS programmable listening in on all the action. That worked great for the first couple hours but then the batteries ran out, I had to pee and I was getting pretty hungry for lunch. Problem was I COULDN'T LEAVE! They had the whole culdesac shut down and no one other than public safety personnel was being allowed in or out. D'OH! One of the neighbors let me use their bathroom and we simply moved to where a deputy had left his car window down so we could continue to listen. The standoff lasted another FOUR HOURS before the guy finally gave up and came out. Oh did I mention that I was supposed to be at work that day? Yeah coming in 4 hours late isn't a good way to impress your boss, but fortunately I was just a grocery store cart attendant at the time and they were used to us kids all being slackers anyway. I got a "verbal" and was sent out to go fetch some carts and had to stay late to make it up. 
Ahhh the good old days of no worries or responsibilities. Can't get away with that sort of thing now!
-AZ
Ahhh the good old days of no worries or responsibilities. Can't get away with that sort of thing now!
-AZ
just go to www.stupidscannertricks.com. lol
Now I could write a book about all the crazy things I did with radio, but one of the best stories comes from a friend's ham shack. One evening we were playing radio when the phone rang, not a TVI complaint this time but a neighbor saying there was a glowing UFO hovering over the house lighting up the roof. Wonderful, Mrs. Smith is into the Jack again... uh huh, uh huh, click. A while later it rang again, another neighbor, same story. EH? After several such calls what is with these people, has the whole neighborhood gone nuts? We decided to take a break from all this and went outside just to see what all the fuss was about, nothing.
He went back inside while I finished my beer and I caught this glimpse of light out of the corner of my eye, looked up and there it was! Not exactly U but an FO of sorts, a fluorescent tube hanging on the antenna wire where it crossed the roof bobbing around in the wind lit up by RF.
I guess you can't call it a stupid scanner trick but it certainly was a foxy little brother trick! We have no idea how he new about ions excited by an electric field but beware, you never know what's going to come out of Dexter's Lab.
He went back inside while I finished my beer and I caught this glimpse of light out of the corner of my eye, looked up and there it was! Not exactly U but an FO of sorts, a fluorescent tube hanging on the antenna wire where it crossed the roof bobbing around in the wind lit up by RF.
I guess you can't call it a stupid scanner trick but it certainly was a foxy little brother trick! We have no idea how he new about ions excited by an electric field but beware, you never know what's going to come out of Dexter's Lab.
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