Way back in the stone ages, late 1960’s and early 70’s my godfather, Uncle Johnnie, lived with my grandparents (his sister and brother-in-law) in a little town called Paddock Lake in SE Wisconsin, about an hour’s drive from us. This was a typical Wisconsin lake town, most of the homes were converted summer cottages, and in fact the home there started out as my grandparent’s cottage, and they added on to it and eventually retired to it to live there full time. I can barely recall them living in Chicago as they moved to Wisconsin full-time when I was 7 or 8.
Uncle Johnnie was pretty much bedridden by the time due to age, illness and liquid consumption. He was an avid scanner listener however and had 3 different Bearcats, I am pretty sure they were BC-1 or BC-II models. One was low band for the Wisconsin State Patrol and Illinois State Police (both were using 42 MHz. at the time) as well as a couple fire channels in the area on 46 MHz. The other two were VHF-high, one for Kenosha County and City and the other for Paddock Lake/Salem. The two high-band radios had just the stick antennas, but he had some sort of antenna on the roof for the low band scanner.
At the time the town had a part-time police department with a couple officers who lived in town. They had a couple volunteer dispatchers, of which one was my uncle for several years. For that time, he had an RCA two-way radio in his room on the VHF channel used by the local police as well as the public works and snowplow crews. It was some sort of desk set with a desk mic and an antenna cable that went out the front window to someplace on the roof.
When you called the police department’s phone number it would ring in the Village Hall. When the staff left for the day, they flipped a switch, and the calls were forwarded to the police chief’s home as well as the volunteers. Now, at the time they still had party lines, so the “Police Ring” had its own ring pattern, different than the one for their home number. Residents were advised to contact the Sheriff’s office if no one answered.
If you are old enough to have used Party Lines, they were kind of fun. If not, they were a shared phone line between several homes, each home had a distinctive ring assigned to it so you knew it was your call or not. This didn’t stop you from answering the call anyway and take a message for your neighbor or just listen in to their conversations.
This setup lasted a few years until calls were taken by first the neighboring Salem Township police and later the county sheriff. They retrieved the RCA radio but left the antenna on the roof, he connected it to one of the VHF high band scanners for better reception.
The scanners were on 24/7, and he knew everything that went on in town. Of course, the town had only 900 residents, so it wasn’t too hard. Long after they went to actual dispatchers the police would stop in occasionally to ask Johnnie about someone they were looking for, he knew which tavern to find them in or where they would be fishing out on the lake. If you ever saw the movie “Grumpy Old Men”, this was the exact type of town Paddock Lake was then.
My grandparents hated “those damned radios” as they called them. My grandfather was the village president, public works commissioner and/or weed-cutter boat operator off and on for years and has a park named after him in the town. They wanted to put a radio in his car, but he wouldn’t have it. After Johnnie died when I was about 14, they gave me his scanners. I could use the low-band one as he had the crystals for the Illinois State Police District 2 and the statewide (42.50) channel and the WI and 46 MHz. fire channels occasionally had skip on them. The VHF-High band scanners were of less use to me as none of the frequencies were in use in my area and I already had Regency scanners so the crystals I had would not work. I kept them for a few years and eventually got some local crystals, but they mostly lived in a box in the basement and got tossed during a move.
Years later I was given a batch of similar BC-IV scanners in various states of disrepair. I fixed up two of them by scavenging parts and boards from others. I was then left with a half dozen inoperative scanners. As the speakers on them were still in good shape for the most part I decided to rewire them to act as external speakers for other radios. This worked out great, they really sounded great connected to a BCT15 or GM300!
When we visited there, I would spend most of the time listening to the scanners with Uncle Johnnie if I wasn’t out at the lake or climbing the huge weeping willow tree in the yard. He would give me a few dollars to go to the market in town to get his newspapers, smokes and a fresh bottle of whatever whiskey he drank or a six-pack. They all knew him there and never had an issue with a 10-year-old kid picking up booze and cigarettes for him.
Uncle Johnnie was certainly a character, irascible, profane, but kind to us kids. He liked the kids more than the adults and always had cinnamon hard candy around for us. He worshipped the memory of his late wife (she died long before I was born), and loved his whiskey, Leinenkugel beer and the Cubs as well as his scanners. I learned a lot from him!
Uncle Johnnie was pretty much bedridden by the time due to age, illness and liquid consumption. He was an avid scanner listener however and had 3 different Bearcats, I am pretty sure they were BC-1 or BC-II models. One was low band for the Wisconsin State Patrol and Illinois State Police (both were using 42 MHz. at the time) as well as a couple fire channels in the area on 46 MHz. The other two were VHF-high, one for Kenosha County and City and the other for Paddock Lake/Salem. The two high-band radios had just the stick antennas, but he had some sort of antenna on the roof for the low band scanner.
At the time the town had a part-time police department with a couple officers who lived in town. They had a couple volunteer dispatchers, of which one was my uncle for several years. For that time, he had an RCA two-way radio in his room on the VHF channel used by the local police as well as the public works and snowplow crews. It was some sort of desk set with a desk mic and an antenna cable that went out the front window to someplace on the roof.
When you called the police department’s phone number it would ring in the Village Hall. When the staff left for the day, they flipped a switch, and the calls were forwarded to the police chief’s home as well as the volunteers. Now, at the time they still had party lines, so the “Police Ring” had its own ring pattern, different than the one for their home number. Residents were advised to contact the Sheriff’s office if no one answered.
If you are old enough to have used Party Lines, they were kind of fun. If not, they were a shared phone line between several homes, each home had a distinctive ring assigned to it so you knew it was your call or not. This didn’t stop you from answering the call anyway and take a message for your neighbor or just listen in to their conversations.
This setup lasted a few years until calls were taken by first the neighboring Salem Township police and later the county sheriff. They retrieved the RCA radio but left the antenna on the roof, he connected it to one of the VHF high band scanners for better reception.
The scanners were on 24/7, and he knew everything that went on in town. Of course, the town had only 900 residents, so it wasn’t too hard. Long after they went to actual dispatchers the police would stop in occasionally to ask Johnnie about someone they were looking for, he knew which tavern to find them in or where they would be fishing out on the lake. If you ever saw the movie “Grumpy Old Men”, this was the exact type of town Paddock Lake was then.
My grandparents hated “those damned radios” as they called them. My grandfather was the village president, public works commissioner and/or weed-cutter boat operator off and on for years and has a park named after him in the town. They wanted to put a radio in his car, but he wouldn’t have it. After Johnnie died when I was about 14, they gave me his scanners. I could use the low-band one as he had the crystals for the Illinois State Police District 2 and the statewide (42.50) channel and the WI and 46 MHz. fire channels occasionally had skip on them. The VHF-High band scanners were of less use to me as none of the frequencies were in use in my area and I already had Regency scanners so the crystals I had would not work. I kept them for a few years and eventually got some local crystals, but they mostly lived in a box in the basement and got tossed during a move.
Years later I was given a batch of similar BC-IV scanners in various states of disrepair. I fixed up two of them by scavenging parts and boards from others. I was then left with a half dozen inoperative scanners. As the speakers on them were still in good shape for the most part I decided to rewire them to act as external speakers for other radios. This worked out great, they really sounded great connected to a BCT15 or GM300!
When we visited there, I would spend most of the time listening to the scanners with Uncle Johnnie if I wasn’t out at the lake or climbing the huge weeping willow tree in the yard. He would give me a few dollars to go to the market in town to get his newspapers, smokes and a fresh bottle of whatever whiskey he drank or a six-pack. They all knew him there and never had an issue with a 10-year-old kid picking up booze and cigarettes for him.
Uncle Johnnie was certainly a character, irascible, profane, but kind to us kids. He liked the kids more than the adults and always had cinnamon hard candy around for us. He worshipped the memory of his late wife (she died long before I was born), and loved his whiskey, Leinenkugel beer and the Cubs as well as his scanners. I learned a lot from him!
