"What can you listen to anyway? If you had one, I can't think of anything."
You *might* be able to hear some AMPS traffic on the lower cell band (825-845/channels 001-333) *if*, and that's a really big if, you're lucky enough to have such a service operating in the area. F¢¢ regulations were changed in 2008 such that cell phone companies were no longer required to carry AMPS, so most were pretty quick to dump it.
That said, Cass County's large and rural enough that it may still be in use there, since AMPS can provide reasonable service over large and remote geographic areas fairly easily from just a few strategically-placed cell sites; a feat that even the most advanced GSM system probably has yet to accomplish. I'd think the mostly flat, prairie terrain around your part of the state would also be particularly conducive for such operation. Hmmm...looks like another road-trip to my Aunt's/Uncle's "outpost" just outside of Leonard might be in my future, this time armed with my trusty unblocked PRO-2004 that I didn't have last time. ;o)
Frankly, these days I don't mind having a "blocked" scanner, in fact it almost seems like a necessity. There's no traffic whatsoever, AMPS or otherwise to be found in the low band around here, and it makes for less button-pushing when passing through the high band (870-890 MHz/channels 334-666; where GSM operates) in search mode, since both my rigs like to stop on data channels. It just makes things easier and more efficient, I think.