When I heard the news Gene Hughes passed away the other day, it really brought back a lot of memories of a man, who not only a mentor and teacher to me, but an all around great human being. In essence, he was the godfather of scanning information before the Information Age.
My first experience with two-way radios came at the age of six. My father and I were driving westbound on U.S. Highway 12, when we were next to a Michigan State Police cruiser, when I spotted Trooper in the passenger seat talking over a telephone. I immediately asked my father was he was doing, and he explained to me how the two-way radios worked, making it possible for local state police post to relay emergency messages back and forth between their patrol cars.
This moment really blew my mind, leaving an indelible impression that still resonates within my soul to this very day. I thought to myself, how can they talk to each other without any wires? This is unbelievable! From that moment on, I became fascinated with two-way radios and electronics.
When I got my first tunable monitor radio at age of nine, I was able to catch all the local public safety action, but all too quickly I found out that it was hard to keep track of so many agencies with a radio that could receive one frequency at a time. Thankfully, my aunt and uncle had an eight-channel crystal controlled scanner, manufactured by Petersen Electronics in their dinning room. I immediately saw this as the best solution to my needs.
After spending the better part of a year of begging my parents for a new radio, I finally received a ten-channel Regency scanner for Christmas. I was overjoyed, but this radio was far more sensitive and could receive stations at a much greater distance than my old receiver. Ironically, I was feeling rather lost until I discovered Police Call.
While I was at the local Lafayette Radio store in Ann Arbor, I spotted a brand new copy of Police Call on the shelf, and was blown away by all of the information inside of it. This was the 1976 edition with a green cover, which I still have to this day. While I was overjoyed to learn so much, I was rather perplexed by the fact that there was a lot of information that I knew to be correct, but was not inside the volume that I purchased. So I decided to write to Gene, and send him some much needed corrections and updates. I thought to myself, why should anyone else try to decipher this complex jigsaw puzzle, especially, when most public safety agencies were, and still are to this day, rather reluctant to talk about their radio systems.
Three weeks later, I received a two-page, handwritten letter from Gene, thanking me for all the information that I had sent to him. Moreover, he was really amazed that someone so young took the time to send in information. He was very nice and answered all of my questions. Likewise, he commented that he rarely received any information at that time from my part of the nation, and it was a great help to him. In addition, he encouraged me to send in information for the 1977 edition before it went to press, and to feel free to ask him any questions that come to mind.
Eight years later in the summer of 1984, I received a complete nine-volume set of Police Call for the 48 contiguous states. This was a god-sent, as it made it possible to finally track down all of the Skip traffic I was hearing on the VHF-Low band frequencies. This became a great way to learn about the geography of the United States, and the places I was hearing.
When it seemed that the new “trunking” technology would be the end of scanning as we knew it back in the mid-1980s, it was Gene that reassured me and others that it would only be a question of time before the scanner manufacturers would catch-up with the new technology. Thankfully, as we all know today, he was correct.
For the next 20 years, Gene and I would exchange a vast amount of information, always keeping abreast of the latest FCC licensing and technology changes. He told me about his days as an Amateur Radio operator, finally giving it up because he liked to spend quality time with his wife and children, without the sound of radio in the background. However, he was very dedicated to Police Call, and serving in all of the community organizations in the L.A. area.
Four years ago, Gene talked to me about making a long road trip around America, just so he could meet all the people that helped make Police Call such a great success over the past few decades. He planned to do this in two sections, dividing the east and west parts of the nation over the course of two summers. Sadly, due to his busy schedule and then ill-health setting in, he was never able to realize this dream.
To those of us who love monitoring as a hobby, we owe a lot to Gene. He was the lighthouse in the night that helped guide us through the rough seas and safely ashore over the years. As the “Information Age” rapidly replaced the analog world that most of older monitoring veterans grew up in, it spelled the end of many specialized print publications. Gene was poised to convert Police Call into a user updatable ezine, but those plans quickly evaporated when his long-time friend George Switlyk died in 2000. Sadly, I knew after the turn of the millennium, the days of Police Call were numbered as an annual print publication.
Gene was an excellent teacher, and paved the way for the monitoring/scanning hobby that we all enjoy so much today. However, to those of us who knew him a close friend, he will always be much more than that. I have no doubt that without him, we would have been more than lost, and this popular pastime that we take for granted today, would have never developed the way it has in the United States. This will undoubtedly be his lasting legacy.
Rest in peace my friend, and let us know what frequencies heaven is on. We will miss you dearly!
