There were some disadvantages. Back in the 1960s and 1970s, while it’s true that virtually all non-military comms were in the clear (and most of those were, too), changing freqs wasn’t easy. The scanners were all crystal-controlled. If you wanted to add a new freq, you ordered the correct crystal from the crystal company and waited for the mail to deliver it. Then you’d take the screws out of the scanner, slide the chassis out, plug in the new crystal and reassemble the case. Most scanners could hold eight crystals. If you wanted more frequencies, you bought a second scanner. And we did.
There was no searching a range of freqs, obviously. Sixteen-channel scanners showed up later and I once presided over four of them. And programmable scanners that could receive VHF air came along later. If you wanted a simpler life, you stayed on HF.
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