Noooo, whatever sparked the "radio" hobby.
Thanks, I was hoping you would say that!
I must start at the "beginning".
1946, on a bicycle, responding to "smoke and sirens". (City of Phoenix, 1946, 3-4 square miles). Hard to believe, but I was unbelievable on a bike. Between 1946 and 1959, I was "on the scene" early (day time fires), and saw much "first water" on innumerable fires, major and minor.
1959-1962, in my car, responding to "smoke and sirens", I started taking photographs and movies of the "big ones". Also, between ~June through ~ October, on a multiple alarms, I set the cameras down and went to the local Store/CircleK/whatever. I carried two, ten gallon water coolers in my trunk. I got a bag of ice for each, and watered them up. I would race back to the scene and walk the fire line distributing water. No cups, and I left the lids in the car, and the Firemen drank from the lip of the water cooler. This thought is inconceivable now days.
1962 is where it started radio wise. I was given, by a group of Phoenix FD Personel, a turnout coat (seems like it was 25 lbs, or so) and, get this: A 24" x 36" stainless steel heavy duty cookie sheet. Half of the cookie sheet was empty (transmiter equipment removed). The other half (18" x 24") contained the receiving portion of a radio removed from an auctioned apperatus. It had 12 or 18 (bad memory) tubes, that had screw adjustments at the top of the tubes (welders gloves required to adjust). Knowing nothing about radios, I had to pay a professional, 75 cents, about every two months to keep this monster's ears on. I installed this in the trunk of my vehicle and ran speaker wires up to a speaker near the drivers seat.
I found out later, that many of similar interest, had commercial, tuneable, radios, in their homes, about this time. But between 1962 and about 1964, I never met a single "unofficial" person, that was hearing dispatches in their automobiles (well, really everything, they only used one frequency back then, same as the analogue dispatch today, 159.140, KOA519).
After about 1965, I had many "commercial" tuneable radios, at home and in my vehicles. I have no positive memory as to when I acquired my first "scanner". I would guess somewhere around 1978 (1st Divorce, lol).
Thanks for the invite! Thanks for listening!
Rob