Curious what others do with your legacy / older scanners...?

[Engine104]

Here in L.A., at least so far, my Pro-96, Pro-2006, and Pro-162 work fine here. Our new LA-RICS TRS is Motorola Phase-2, but pretty much anything I'd be interested in listening to (LASD Tacs, for instance) is the "Big-E". LACoFD is still analog and they moved to many of the old non-TRS LASD UHF Freqs. LAFD is 800-Mhz analog and conventional. LAPD is so far in the clear and P-25 Phase 1. Verdugo Fire is on the ICI System, where almost all of the PDs are encrypted, but the several fire departments that make up Verdugo are in the clear on their Phase 1 system. Ventura Co will be moving to a new Phase-2, 700 Mhz TRS soon, but their county fire department may elect to stay on their old VHF frequencies.

 

[EAFrizzle]

I run mine until they quit. I have a pro-2042, a pro-2026, and a DX-394 still in daily use. The 2042 runs MilAir, the 2026 runs railroad channels, and the 394 listens to HFGCS and Iron Mike.

 

[CycleSycho]

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WOW, the replies sure are varied and cool. Glad to know I am not the only one to rat-pack older tech! Nothing wrong with keeping older stuff, brings back memories.


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[rf_patriot200]

My area still uses analog for Police, Fire, Sheriff and Ambulance so I still use mine.

RCA 16S400 - Non visible area of the living room plugged into an Alexa switch. Whenever I hear a siren, I just say, "Computer.. scanner on".
Uniden/Bearcat 800XLT - On the headboard of the bed a perfect place for it's nice fluorescent display.

" Alexa, Afterburners ON "

 

[Omega-TI]

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WOW, the replies sure are varied and cool. Glad to know I am not the only one to rat-pack older tech! Nothing wrong with keeping older stuff, brings back memories.


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Dang right! Not only radios, I've got a 42 year old computer in the house that I occasionally turn on and call a BBS with. Of course it's like one of those automotive "Resto-Mods", it looks stock, but it has a lot of modern 3rd party parts under the hood.

 

[bearcatrp]

I used to run a BBS. Haven't heard that terminology in a long time. No reason to get rid of an old radio if its still doing its job.

 

[Omega-TI]

Dedicate to single frequency.

Ditto! I keep an old TH22AT hooked up to a digital recorder 24/7... just in case I miss something important.
That's all it's good for any more, seriously the keypad buttons no longer function, so it's not worth buying a battery for, but is still receives quite well. That thing could go on for another 20 years like that... although I'll probably be expired before then and the big switch to digital is inevitable.

 

[Omega-TI]

I used to run a BBS. Haven't heard that terminology in a long time. No reason to get rid of an old radio if its still doing its job.

Try this one heatwave.ddns.net 9640

 

[bearcatrp]

Try this one heatwave.ddns.net 9640

Will give it a try. Boy, those were the days. Had a blast running one. Had a 6 disc external drive for games and porn. Internet killed all of that. Didn’t think anyone would run one now.

 

[cherubim]

I go through all my older scanners and receivers and test them to ensure they still function. Leaving them idle just accelerates their demise and in the case of proprietary batteries (like the ones for the Uniden BC-250D) leaving them idle will basically erode their capacity. One example, I acquired a new in box GRE PSR-295 (A UK Model) back in 2012. I opened it last December and although it works the display is completely dead.

A lot of my older analog/digital scanners get a good workout for monitoring airband, maritime, CB, Ham and anything else of interest,

I especially like my Yaesu FT-60R for civil and military airband monitoring - it has superb audio and good sensitivity & selectivity. The Radioshack PRO-137 is also a favorite of mine for analog monitoring. It has just the right size, solid build quality, good audio and scans wicked fast.

 

[N8YX]

I have 6 Optocoms paired with 6 R-7000s - controlled by Spectrum Commander IX and run in handoff mode. That is, the Optocoms find something of interest (fast scanning speed) then hand it off to the R-7000s (modified w/ better filtering and more sensitive overall) for signal analysis. VHF and UHF Air, FRS/GMRS/MURS, VHF Marine, VHF/UHF analog business, railroads, range searches of spectrum blocks and similar functions are performed.

There are 6 PCR-1000s in the lineup. Each is tasked with scanning frequencies of interest in VHF/UHF amateur bands - 6, 2, 222, 440, 902 and 1.2GHz - though I may swap 902 for 10M AM and FM. Some of these are hooked to packet modems. Some have the UT-106 DSP option. Eventually, all will.

Also have 4 Pro-2006s. Two have OS-456 "Full" boards in them and the other two have none - but I have two "Lite" boards to put in them at some point. Plan is to run them in pairs - a Full paired with a Lite. May use these for additional MilAir coverage.

A Pro-2035 w/ OS-535. My first computer controlled scanner. I use it as a reference rig. Should I find an OS-535 equipped pro-2042 I'll add that to the collection.

Lastly, a paid of BCT-15X. As moonbounce did, I put discriminator taps on these and they're used to feed a couple of PCs with DSDPlus.

I let the software do my scanning and listen to the take. Programming the ranges and radio profiles takes a bit of time but definitely makes things easier.

Of note: Have licensed copies of Probev7 and Probe1k for use with the Optocoms, OS- controllers and PCR-1000s. At times I'll use that instead of SC-IX to do stored channel searches.