I have known my buddy Scooter (AKA Scott) for 45 years now. While we don’t see or talk to each other often these days due to distance, family and other obligations, he was pretty much my mentor in my early scanner days. I learned more from him than anyone else in the radio community.
At the time we met he was a dispatcher for a large combined dispatch agency in the Chicago area. I was a freshman in college and working as a police/fire dispatcher to pay my tuition. I had been a scanner guy for a decade or more using several crystal scanners over the years and was getting more and more into radio as a hobby to supplement my career choice. At the time I was also a POC firefighter and going to EMT school 2 nights a week. When you are 18 or 19 you can balance a full-time job, full class load at the local junior college, a part time gig at the firehouse as well as EMT school as well as friends and the occasional girlfriend. If I got 2 hours of sleep a night, I was fine for the day.
I met Scooter at my first RCMA meeting, he was buds with my friend Dan who had introduced me to the RCMA. Dan was a dispatcher for the fire department in the next town over, we spoke daily at work, and we created our own local scanner guide. It turned out that much of the information in that guide came from Scooter.
After we met, Scooter and I spent a lot of time playing radio. He liked to talk, and I liked to listen so that part worked well. He explained to me how things like repeaters, PL tones, two-tone paging and other intricacies of two-way radio worked. It was trunking however that really made me understand how valuable a resource his knowledge was. He, along with several other friends and I spent a day at O’Hare Airport playing radio. I had a brand new BC235XLT scanner, and we were trying to figure out the Fleet Maps of the ORD trunking systems. They were Type-I at the time so deciphering fleet maps was required to properly monitor them.
Let us take an offramp for a minute here. Nowadays scanner users have it easy. We have RadioReference’s database, scanners that only require the current Control channel to be programmed and radios with that database built in so there is little guesswork or research needed to figure these things out. Back then frequencies lists were shared among friends so were a lot less accessible. Trunking data pretty much just consisted of the system frequencies and the users. Fleet maps, talkgroup IDs etc. were concepts we knew little of. When the 235 and 895 scanners came out this started to become needed as we could now track those Motorola systems. If, however, you were like me at the time and didn’t understand the concept of trunking it was still all Greek. That’s where Scooter comes in.
Bac to the airport: I could not get my scanner programmed properly and was ready to send the 235 back. Scooter and I, along with the others, were sitting in the Rotunda at ORD with a bunch of radios on the counter. When Scooter realized I really had no idea what I was doing he took the time to explain how trunking in general worked, then once I had that down how Fleet Maps were organized. He was the one who explained that a trunking system works much like a bank teller line queue. Once I visualized that idea it clicked. On the ride home we discussed it further and by the time I got home I pretty much understood the concepts and was confident in programming the scanner for trunked systems. By the time the BC245XLT came out shortly thereafter (I beta tested it) I was able to apply what I learned from Scooter to the 245 and the local EDACS systems. I was able to figure out the LCN concepts on my own.
Other things I learned from Scooter was about PL tones. I was getting confused with how they worked, and like many other newbies to the concept I thought that multiple users could use the frequency simultaneously. Eventually I was able to understand how PL tones allow users to basically ignore each other but that they do not prevent them from interfering with each other.
Over the next few years we travelled around the Midwest chasing trains, playing radios and going to racetracks. On each of these trips we had long discussions about many different radio topics. Due to his experiences as a communications technician, dispatcher and firefighter he was a wealth of knowledge ripe for the pickings of a young and eager scanner geek thirsting for knowledge.
Eventually we worked out a trip to the Allegan Michigan FCC Monitoring Post. This was about a 4-hour drive each way, so we made it an overnight trip. We did some other things on the trip, like visiting the local Michigan State Police posts, did some railfanning and more. This meant we had a lot of time to discuss various radio topics, always an interesting time.
Scooter also took me racing several times, mostly to the Rockford Speedway. This is a short track intended for amateur racers. They did not allow drivers to have radios but there was a lot to listen to anyways. The track officials, venders and safety crews all used radios, all of which we were able to find.
We also went to the Milwaukee Mile Indy-Car race one year. Scooter had a new panel van in which he had built a desk for radios in the back. We brought my Icom R7000, several scanners as well as a couple PL decoders. Being in the days before Racing Radios sold copies of the driver frequencies from their hauler out in the parking lot race car frequencies were mostly spread by word of mouth or thru the RCMA Bulletin. They were often well out of date by the time one would get a listing.
By the end of the race, we had all of the driver channels and PL codes. We also had the safety teams and track officials radio info as well as many of the venders. I don’t recall if we ever watched the race or not, not being a race fan myself I was more interested in the radio stuff.
Not all was peachy keen however. Scooter did not like change much. He held on to his old analog Motorola flip phone long after most of the rest of us moved on to digital phones. This created fun for some of us at RCMA/CARMA meetings. When we would see Scooter on the phone talking to the wife, one of us would find and announce the frequency of the call so we all could tune in on his phone call. That tended to make for a grumpy Scooter, but it was a source of great amusement for the rest of us.
We also had a very weird double date once. My girlfriend at the time wanted me to set her cousin (?) up with someone. Scooter was single at the time so I asked and he wasn't busy that night and was up for adventure. I picked him up and we went off to my girlfriend's apartment and met the cousin. She was attractive but turned out to be a total psychopath. We went to an indoor mini-golf place and she was taking full tee-shot swings. I don't know how she avoided hitting anyone or breaking a window. Scooter has still not forgiven me for that.
Scooter and I were in the same ham radio licensing course and took our tests at the same time. His callsign was directly after mine. Our calls could have been reversed if they put his paperwork on top of mine.
We travelled to Dayton together several times. The drive gave us a lot of time to discuss many radio topics, and we found many treasures each time we went. He also introduced me to the US Air Force Museum at Wright-Patterson AFB near Dayton. We would leave really early Thursday morning and spend the day at the museum before heading to the hotel. Scooter, if you are reading this, please do not touch the aircraft! (He will know what I mean!)
We have a mutual friend who, while a really nice guy, has some peculiarities. He would carry multiple GMRS radios and insisted on bringing all of them, along with 3 flashlights and a couple knives on his belt all the time. Like many of us in this hobby his belt had plenty of room for radios on it. He also attended Dayton with us several times. We all were going to a nice restaurant for dinner there one year and Scooter told him to leave the radios in his hotel room, along with the lights and knives. Scooter made him go back to his room to deposit the stuffage before we let him in the car to go to the restaurant. Everyone he would have talked to on the radio were in the car with him and the restaurant had sufficient lighting and silverware, so he did not need that stuff. Scooter insisted however and by the third attempt we got him down to one radio and a flashlight. I think that was as far as we would get…
Another thing Scooter was into was amusement parks. He had worked in a couple and was fascinated by Disney’s operations. In the early 1990’s we booked a week at Disney World in Florida and after our flight landed, we stopped at a store to get some vittles before we went to the hotel. We discovered via a newspaper (remember them?) that the Space Shuttle would be launching that week. We decided then and there to go watch that, it was only an hour’s drive away and we had a rental car.
Once we arrived at the resort, we were driven to the room by a Disney cast member (they are not called employees) in one of those oversized golf carts. The guy had a radio, I think it was an MX800. It was on the then-current Disney Type I system. Scooter, ever prepared, asked the guy if we could read his radio. The guy was confused but after we told him it would not damage the radio and there was a $20 bill available, he was willing to let us read it using Scott’s laptop, RIB and cable. We then had all the info we needed to program it properly into scanners.
The rest of that week was devoted to visiting each of the parks and listening to the various radio systems there. Many operations were still using GMRS at the time and that was fun to listen to. Other operations were on the trunking system and since we had the info, we didn’t need to waste time figuring out the fleet map. We also had most of the talkgroup ID’s for the resort we were staying at.
That Tuesday we went and saw the Space Shuttle launch. Due to the late notice, we were unable to get onto the grounds of the Kennedy Space Center for the launch, but we did end up on the pavilion at the nearby Space Camp. This was an awesome perch to view the launch. While I have seen plenty of launches on TV, seeing one live is something I will never forget. Of course, we found a bunch of frequencies along the way for both Space Camp and the KSC.
Eventually I bought Scooter’s laptop (the same one he used to read that Disney guy’s radio) from him and I used it for years to program radios of my own and for work. That old Tandy 286 proved its worth for several years. I learned how to program radios and run DOS on it.
10 years ago, I moved across the country after I retired. Scooter remained in the Midwest, but I get back once in a while. We try to set up a CARMA meeting or lunch get-together at a pizza place when I do. We exchange emails and the occasional phone call. Like many true friends we could go years between talking and then pick up where right we left off years before.
At the time we met he was a dispatcher for a large combined dispatch agency in the Chicago area. I was a freshman in college and working as a police/fire dispatcher to pay my tuition. I had been a scanner guy for a decade or more using several crystal scanners over the years and was getting more and more into radio as a hobby to supplement my career choice. At the time I was also a POC firefighter and going to EMT school 2 nights a week. When you are 18 or 19 you can balance a full-time job, full class load at the local junior college, a part time gig at the firehouse as well as EMT school as well as friends and the occasional girlfriend. If I got 2 hours of sleep a night, I was fine for the day.
I met Scooter at my first RCMA meeting, he was buds with my friend Dan who had introduced me to the RCMA. Dan was a dispatcher for the fire department in the next town over, we spoke daily at work, and we created our own local scanner guide. It turned out that much of the information in that guide came from Scooter.
After we met, Scooter and I spent a lot of time playing radio. He liked to talk, and I liked to listen so that part worked well. He explained to me how things like repeaters, PL tones, two-tone paging and other intricacies of two-way radio worked. It was trunking however that really made me understand how valuable a resource his knowledge was. He, along with several other friends and I spent a day at O’Hare Airport playing radio. I had a brand new BC235XLT scanner, and we were trying to figure out the Fleet Maps of the ORD trunking systems. They were Type-I at the time so deciphering fleet maps was required to properly monitor them.
Let us take an offramp for a minute here. Nowadays scanner users have it easy. We have RadioReference’s database, scanners that only require the current Control channel to be programmed and radios with that database built in so there is little guesswork or research needed to figure these things out. Back then frequencies lists were shared among friends so were a lot less accessible. Trunking data pretty much just consisted of the system frequencies and the users. Fleet maps, talkgroup IDs etc. were concepts we knew little of. When the 235 and 895 scanners came out this started to become needed as we could now track those Motorola systems. If, however, you were like me at the time and didn’t understand the concept of trunking it was still all Greek. That’s where Scooter comes in.
Bac to the airport: I could not get my scanner programmed properly and was ready to send the 235 back. Scooter and I, along with the others, were sitting in the Rotunda at ORD with a bunch of radios on the counter. When Scooter realized I really had no idea what I was doing he took the time to explain how trunking in general worked, then once I had that down how Fleet Maps were organized. He was the one who explained that a trunking system works much like a bank teller line queue. Once I visualized that idea it clicked. On the ride home we discussed it further and by the time I got home I pretty much understood the concepts and was confident in programming the scanner for trunked systems. By the time the BC245XLT came out shortly thereafter (I beta tested it) I was able to apply what I learned from Scooter to the 245 and the local EDACS systems. I was able to figure out the LCN concepts on my own.
Other things I learned from Scooter was about PL tones. I was getting confused with how they worked, and like many other newbies to the concept I thought that multiple users could use the frequency simultaneously. Eventually I was able to understand how PL tones allow users to basically ignore each other but that they do not prevent them from interfering with each other.
Over the next few years we travelled around the Midwest chasing trains, playing radios and going to racetracks. On each of these trips we had long discussions about many different radio topics. Due to his experiences as a communications technician, dispatcher and firefighter he was a wealth of knowledge ripe for the pickings of a young and eager scanner geek thirsting for knowledge.
Eventually we worked out a trip to the Allegan Michigan FCC Monitoring Post. This was about a 4-hour drive each way, so we made it an overnight trip. We did some other things on the trip, like visiting the local Michigan State Police posts, did some railfanning and more. This meant we had a lot of time to discuss various radio topics, always an interesting time.
Scooter also took me racing several times, mostly to the Rockford Speedway. This is a short track intended for amateur racers. They did not allow drivers to have radios but there was a lot to listen to anyways. The track officials, venders and safety crews all used radios, all of which we were able to find.
We also went to the Milwaukee Mile Indy-Car race one year. Scooter had a new panel van in which he had built a desk for radios in the back. We brought my Icom R7000, several scanners as well as a couple PL decoders. Being in the days before Racing Radios sold copies of the driver frequencies from their hauler out in the parking lot race car frequencies were mostly spread by word of mouth or thru the RCMA Bulletin. They were often well out of date by the time one would get a listing.
By the end of the race, we had all of the driver channels and PL codes. We also had the safety teams and track officials radio info as well as many of the venders. I don’t recall if we ever watched the race or not, not being a race fan myself I was more interested in the radio stuff.
Not all was peachy keen however. Scooter did not like change much. He held on to his old analog Motorola flip phone long after most of the rest of us moved on to digital phones. This created fun for some of us at RCMA/CARMA meetings. When we would see Scooter on the phone talking to the wife, one of us would find and announce the frequency of the call so we all could tune in on his phone call. That tended to make for a grumpy Scooter, but it was a source of great amusement for the rest of us.
We also had a very weird double date once. My girlfriend at the time wanted me to set her cousin (?) up with someone. Scooter was single at the time so I asked and he wasn't busy that night and was up for adventure. I picked him up and we went off to my girlfriend's apartment and met the cousin. She was attractive but turned out to be a total psychopath. We went to an indoor mini-golf place and she was taking full tee-shot swings. I don't know how she avoided hitting anyone or breaking a window. Scooter has still not forgiven me for that.
Scooter and I were in the same ham radio licensing course and took our tests at the same time. His callsign was directly after mine. Our calls could have been reversed if they put his paperwork on top of mine.
We travelled to Dayton together several times. The drive gave us a lot of time to discuss many radio topics, and we found many treasures each time we went. He also introduced me to the US Air Force Museum at Wright-Patterson AFB near Dayton. We would leave really early Thursday morning and spend the day at the museum before heading to the hotel. Scooter, if you are reading this, please do not touch the aircraft! (He will know what I mean!)
We have a mutual friend who, while a really nice guy, has some peculiarities. He would carry multiple GMRS radios and insisted on bringing all of them, along with 3 flashlights and a couple knives on his belt all the time. Like many of us in this hobby his belt had plenty of room for radios on it. He also attended Dayton with us several times. We all were going to a nice restaurant for dinner there one year and Scooter told him to leave the radios in his hotel room, along with the lights and knives. Scooter made him go back to his room to deposit the stuffage before we let him in the car to go to the restaurant. Everyone he would have talked to on the radio were in the car with him and the restaurant had sufficient lighting and silverware, so he did not need that stuff. Scooter insisted however and by the third attempt we got him down to one radio and a flashlight. I think that was as far as we would get…
Another thing Scooter was into was amusement parks. He had worked in a couple and was fascinated by Disney’s operations. In the early 1990’s we booked a week at Disney World in Florida and after our flight landed, we stopped at a store to get some vittles before we went to the hotel. We discovered via a newspaper (remember them?) that the Space Shuttle would be launching that week. We decided then and there to go watch that, it was only an hour’s drive away and we had a rental car.
Once we arrived at the resort, we were driven to the room by a Disney cast member (they are not called employees) in one of those oversized golf carts. The guy had a radio, I think it was an MX800. It was on the then-current Disney Type I system. Scooter, ever prepared, asked the guy if we could read his radio. The guy was confused but after we told him it would not damage the radio and there was a $20 bill available, he was willing to let us read it using Scott’s laptop, RIB and cable. We then had all the info we needed to program it properly into scanners.
The rest of that week was devoted to visiting each of the parks and listening to the various radio systems there. Many operations were still using GMRS at the time and that was fun to listen to. Other operations were on the trunking system and since we had the info, we didn’t need to waste time figuring out the fleet map. We also had most of the talkgroup ID’s for the resort we were staying at.
That Tuesday we went and saw the Space Shuttle launch. Due to the late notice, we were unable to get onto the grounds of the Kennedy Space Center for the launch, but we did end up on the pavilion at the nearby Space Camp. This was an awesome perch to view the launch. While I have seen plenty of launches on TV, seeing one live is something I will never forget. Of course, we found a bunch of frequencies along the way for both Space Camp and the KSC.
Eventually I bought Scooter’s laptop (the same one he used to read that Disney guy’s radio) from him and I used it for years to program radios of my own and for work. That old Tandy 286 proved its worth for several years. I learned how to program radios and run DOS on it.
10 years ago, I moved across the country after I retired. Scooter remained in the Midwest, but I get back once in a while. We try to set up a CARMA meeting or lunch get-together at a pizza place when I do. We exchange emails and the occasional phone call. Like many true friends we could go years between talking and then pick up where right we left off years before.
