Personal Scanning Histories - How did you get into it and what was 'your first'?

[Omega-TI]

Nice thing about tube radios, they should have no issues from an EMP if some foreign power decides set off a nuke in the upper atmosphere, of course that will do little good when the power grid is shot and all the transmitters are off the air.

 

[Omega-TI]

I've come full circle today! The replacement for the first scanner I ever had arrived today.
I made this .GIF to celebrate!

 

[mciupa]

Channel 10 is turned off. Is it for NWS?

 

[Omega-TI]

Channel 10 is turned off. Is it for NWS?

No, I'm afraid not YET. The light is burnt out on #10. However that spot WILL be for the NWS when I get the proper frequency. The scanner actually came with two NWS crystals,162.550 and 162.400 neither is local for me.

 

[Omega-TI]

... the sad thing I bought a few crystals today, but 154.190 and 154.245 were not available on ebay.

 

[rjdj2000]

I got into the scanner thing through my dad. Used to listen on a Bearcat 101 and he had another programmable one downstairs, don't remember which one it was but I still have the Bearcat III that he had and I had in my vehicle when I was a volunteer, 201XL and a couple of Radio Shack base units. He had a programmable handheld and I had a 4ch. crystal portable as well. Sill have them somewhere. Nowdays I have a 536HP in one room on the local P25 and use the SDR for my feed on here along with a SDR for the NOAA Feed I stream. Up next will be a Bearcat-Pi. I'll leave you to ponder on that one for a bit. Once I start building it, I will document it in the forums here.

Oh and to the OP, I still wished I had the TI99/4A that I had along with all of the Commodore C-64/128 stuff I had when I was younger.

 

[jazzboypro]

I was introduced to scanners by my uncle (my mother's brother) who was a police officer, i was about 15 YO at the time. By looking at some pictures the first scanner i got was a Radio Shack PRO-43. These were the days. I still have a PRO-90 and a PRO-2050 but i never use them.

73
DE VA2FCS

 

[Eng74]

My aunt and uncle who lived three houses down from us in the 1970’s had one in the base in the kitchen. This had to be 77/78. As a kid always watched Emergency! so it always had my attention when we were there. I wish I had that scanner now, not even sure what it was, just remember it had the red lights going across its front. Then in 1980 moved to SoCal desert and then the shuttle was landing at Edwards and saw people at the landings with scanners listening to the air to ground feed. Once I started working a Pro-38 10 channel was one of my first purchases. I think it was like $110 at the time in 1990. Was hooked as much as when I was a kid, ended up become a paid call the reserve for my County Fire Department. Never looked back and kept upgrading and buying new radios all the time. Still amazes me to go from a 10 channel to pretty much unlimited that we have today.

 

[KC2CQD]

Lemme see...
My first radio was a 1951 National NC-125 I bought from a neighbor with my paper route money when I was about 13.

5 years later that neighbor called me stating that he had found and purchased the matching transmitter and offered me $125 for the receiver.
I turned him down.

After nearly 25 years of enjoyment the receiver started to fade and in spite of my best efforts, it just wasn't working as well as it used to.
I brought the radio to a friend of mine who tested all the tubes and said they were all still well in the green. Turns out the old wax capacitors had pretty much turned to powder with heat and time. For about $5, we got modern caps, switched out the oldies and Presto! She still receives gloriously.

Radio : $25 (in 1984)
75 foot extension cord for improvised inverted V : $0.00 (salvaged from trash)
Parts and labor for overhaul : $10

Firing that bad boy up, opening the lid and watching the mellow glow late at night : PRICELESS....

 

[BananaPepper]

... the sad thing I bought a few crystals today, but 154.190 and 154.245 were not available on ebay.

Like this?

 

[Omega-TI]

Like this?

Oh yes, yes, yes! If it's a 10.7 IF. For sale?

 

[Omega-TI]

Channel 10 is turned off. Is it for NWS?

Update... I thought position 10's light was burned out, it seems the switch had some oxidation on it and now it works. Strange thing though, crystals do not work in position 3, but I can live with that, after all the scanner is old, even if it does look new.

 

[Omega-TI]

Oh yes, yes, yes! If it's a 10.7 IF. For sale?

I noticed one went online, but I'm wondering if the seller hangs out here, because... the price. For now between crystals and scanner I've invested over $120 already, so I think I'll hold off for a while before I purchase the last three frequencies.

 

[k7ng]

My VERY first experience outside listening to shortwave broadcast was on an old receiver I rescued from a trash heap behind a neighbor's garage. I found replacements for a couple bad tubes and fashioned a new dial pointer from a cocktail olive spear. Not doing too bad for a 5th grader, eh? I had no idea about anything else except the radio would tune in Los Angeles Police dispatching just above the AM broadcast band. I don't know when LAPD finally turned that off but it came in just great evenings in N. Calif in 1964.

I also got hold of a tunable VHF receiver that a family friend didn't want any more and I started listening to the local police department. Dad said "It just doesn't seem right" to have a kid listening to the police activities and almost banned me from listening until the same family friend showed me ham radio, and thereafter anything 'radio' was suspicious but legal in our house.

 

[UNITYXG]

This is a great question!

I started out as a kid around 10 years old with a Pro-94 from radio shack. I remember back in the late 90s and early 00s, I was able to listen to...quite a bit that would be taboo and unethical by today's standards (remember the cordless house phone era?). Besides typical Fire and Police, Listening to FRS and GMRS, and Ham was the norm for a nosey kid. I believe the Pro94 was released in April of 2000 and I had one shortly afterwards for a while. I wish I could find it.

I remember looking at Radio and Scanning magazines and wanting sooo bad the Bearcat 780XLT, to me that was the top dog scanner, and it could scan UHF AIR bands. After 9/11 I remember UHF Air being pulled from alot of other scanners. My Pro94 could not and that was a big thing I wanted since I lived in Pensacola and there was a lot of military air activity going on at the time, and I loved airplanes, still do.

Since then Ive gotten a Uniden SDS-200, which is wayyyy cooler than the 780XLT (which I would still like to own..).

 

[Eng74]

This is a great question!

I started out as a kid around 10 years old with a Pro-94 from radio shack. I remember back in the late 90s and early 00s, I was able to listen to...quite a bit that would be taboo and unethical by today's standards (remember the cordless house phone era?). Besides typical Fire and Police, Listening to FRS and GMRS, and Ham was the norm for a nosey kid. I believe the Pro94 was released in April of 2000 and I had one shortly afterwards for a while. I wish I could find it.

I remember looking at Radio and Scanning magazines and wanting sooo bad the Bearcat 780XLT, to me that was the top dog scanner, and it could scan UHF AIR bands. After 9/11 I remember UHF Air being pulled from alot of other scanners. My Pro94 could not and that was a big thing I wanted since I lived in Pensacola and there was a lot of military air activity going on at the time, and I loved airplanes, still do.

Since then Ive gotten a Uniden SDS-200, which is wayyyy cooler than the 780XLT (which I would still like to own..).

The Pro-94 was my first trunking scanner. Took me forever to learn how to program that thing. If you were not in an area with trunking, you can not program in the talk groups. Then I got the Pro-92 and 2067, so much easier to program and the first I could do with a computer.

 

[KV4PM]

I was probably 12 or 13 when my buddies and I rode our bikes downtown on a rainy winter day and where tooling around an electronics store where they had a scanner going; it grabbed my attention circa 1975 and hasn't let go. Saved money from mowing lawns and bought an 8-channel unit with crystals like the above. Funny that I can remember so many minute details except the brand of scanner!

 

[UNITYXG]

The Pro-94 was my first trunking scanner. Took me forever to learn how to program that thing. If you were not in an area with trunking, you can not program in the talk groups. Then I got the Pro-92 and 2067, so much easier to program and the first I could do with a computer.

I dont *believe* I was since the areas I lived in were more small town. Pensacola was a small place. Fire, Police, EMS had their own analog frequency. It looks like now they are all P25E full time, still simplex though. (That's for Escambia County) Pensacola Police has a trunking system that does not interact directly with Escambia countys system, but im sure they interop.

It was a fun time for scanning. Nowadays is more bland as departments are going encrypted full time, but hey, the whackers did us wonders for that didnt they lol.

 

[TrainsOfThought]

I grew up in the 60's shadows (literally next door) of Bethlehem Steel's Sparrows Point Plant. We have (had) 4 generations of family work there, on both my AND my wife's side, in early century workforce housing (brick rowhouses...hardwood floors, basements) and had B&O trains go past. I used to run down the block to watch them pass.

Our fist house was in the same area. Stable employment allowed me to railfan and meet other fellows with "scanners". I WAS HOOKED! In no time Radio Shack Pro-43 traveled wherever I went. My first born resulted in less trackside time so I brought rail ops to ME with a Pro-2006 and other later Pro-20xx each with a dedicated flat roof antenna Diamond D-130 Discone and Cushcraft Ringo ARX-2B...I poured over Monitoring Times and Popular Communications every chance.

In 2000 we moved to Maryland's Eastern Shore/DelMarVa; I retired 12/2017. Train stuff long on the back burner Delmarva rail ops center from Wilmington region, DE 32-45 (depending on regional Dispatchers and the remote bases...not repeaters) miles away over relatively flat Coastal Plain. I enjoy a web rail simulcast of ops for the region based out of a Wilmington enthusiast with a Traintenna BUT my retirement project is to see if I can receive the same via organic radio from my location. Research and education has been intensive...when ham radio and scanner worlds collide to radio success.

BTW...My original radios are still buried in 20+ year old UNTOUCHED packing in the basement. A FORCED housecleaning and anti-hoarding edict in effect for Spring 2022. In the meantime I've started a collection of Pro-20xx radios (I have half a dozen 2006's in the garage to further test, from purchases a decade ago).

 

[TrainsOfThought]

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