In a post the other day “captncarp” talked about his BC560XLT scanner (https://forums.radioreference.com/uniden-tavern/352696-mystery-mobile.html).
This got me reminiscing about some of my Bearcats of the day. The 560 and its ilk spawned a large number of different scanners in the same package, kind of like what Uniden has done recently with the BCT15/996/536 series in the DIN size package.
There was the BC560 like he has and it included several others. The most well known (and my favorite) was the BC760XLT which had an early implementation of PL decoding with the optional board. ScannerWorld at the time had a couple “Exclusive” radios, their version of the 760 was the 950 and had a grey front instead of a black one. There were also private-label versions for Cobra and others. Uniden, which had recently bought out Regency's scanner line, also sold some under the Regency label.
When you get to the 760 there were 3 versions. The original one had the old Motorola antenna jack, the newer ones had the BNC. There were 2 versions of the BNC radio, later versions allowed you to have the PL decode on and set a tone on a channel without tone, the older one required PL on every channel if the board was switched on. Some of us installed little PL encoders set at the bare minimum deviation that would open the receiver on 67.0 Hz. This way if it were a CSQ channel the radio could be programmed with a 67.0 PL and still open while allowing actual PL encoded signals to pass their PL. Since the deviation of a "real" PL tone was higher it overrode the 67.0 encoder.
There was also the BC580XLT and it's similar radios that were much like the 760 but did not cover the 800 MHz. band. Internal to these radios was a slot that allowed the use of an optional pre-amp, this slot was used by the 800 MHz. converter on the 760/950 so these radios had an available external pre-amp. When you bought the PL or Preamp options they came with a switch board that mounted under the fold-down bail on the bottom of the radio that had 2 switches, one each for the pre-amp and decoder.
I had a boatload of these scanners, mostly of the BC760XLT version. They were compact, good performers and feature rich for the day. I had a couple of the 560's as well and used them mostly for railroad channels at home. The 760's were great in the car due to the small size. On an older one I soldered in a BNC-Moto adapter and another I actually removed the old Moto jack and replaced it with a BNC.
I didn’t have any of the ScannerWorld, Cobra or Regency versions so I don’t know if any of these ever came with the BNC connector, the only ones I saw were all with the Moto jack. I did have one 580 with the internal pre-amp and had a 760 with the external one. All of my 760’s had the PL decoder and the last one I kept was of the newest version with the BNC and that allowed PL or CSQ at the same time. I had at least 2 that I installed the PL encoder and at least 2 that I did not.
I had a friend who was so into PL decoding at the time that he literally wore out the keypad on his 760 by his furious programming efforts. He would program in the same frequency 38 times, each with a different PL and watch for hits, logging them as they came. (CARMA/RCMA-CC guys know who I am talking about!) This was back in the days when PL tomes were kind of hush-hush, the RCMA wouldn’t allow their publication at the time and that kind of made it the sacred forbidden fruit that everyone wanted.
I found one of my old 760's in a box when we were packing up the house a couple years ago when we were fixing to move. It still worked and I ended up giving it to someone at a CARMA meeting so I assume it is still out there someplace.
This got me reminiscing about some of my Bearcats of the day. The 560 and its ilk spawned a large number of different scanners in the same package, kind of like what Uniden has done recently with the BCT15/996/536 series in the DIN size package.
There was the BC560 like he has and it included several others. The most well known (and my favorite) was the BC760XLT which had an early implementation of PL decoding with the optional board. ScannerWorld at the time had a couple “Exclusive” radios, their version of the 760 was the 950 and had a grey front instead of a black one. There were also private-label versions for Cobra and others. Uniden, which had recently bought out Regency's scanner line, also sold some under the Regency label.
When you get to the 760 there were 3 versions. The original one had the old Motorola antenna jack, the newer ones had the BNC. There were 2 versions of the BNC radio, later versions allowed you to have the PL decode on and set a tone on a channel without tone, the older one required PL on every channel if the board was switched on. Some of us installed little PL encoders set at the bare minimum deviation that would open the receiver on 67.0 Hz. This way if it were a CSQ channel the radio could be programmed with a 67.0 PL and still open while allowing actual PL encoded signals to pass their PL. Since the deviation of a "real" PL tone was higher it overrode the 67.0 encoder.
There was also the BC580XLT and it's similar radios that were much like the 760 but did not cover the 800 MHz. band. Internal to these radios was a slot that allowed the use of an optional pre-amp, this slot was used by the 800 MHz. converter on the 760/950 so these radios had an available external pre-amp. When you bought the PL or Preamp options they came with a switch board that mounted under the fold-down bail on the bottom of the radio that had 2 switches, one each for the pre-amp and decoder.
I had a boatload of these scanners, mostly of the BC760XLT version. They were compact, good performers and feature rich for the day. I had a couple of the 560's as well and used them mostly for railroad channels at home. The 760's were great in the car due to the small size. On an older one I soldered in a BNC-Moto adapter and another I actually removed the old Moto jack and replaced it with a BNC.
I didn’t have any of the ScannerWorld, Cobra or Regency versions so I don’t know if any of these ever came with the BNC connector, the only ones I saw were all with the Moto jack. I did have one 580 with the internal pre-amp and had a 760 with the external one. All of my 760’s had the PL decoder and the last one I kept was of the newest version with the BNC and that allowed PL or CSQ at the same time. I had at least 2 that I installed the PL encoder and at least 2 that I did not.
I had a friend who was so into PL decoding at the time that he literally wore out the keypad on his 760 by his furious programming efforts. He would program in the same frequency 38 times, each with a different PL and watch for hits, logging them as they came. (CARMA/RCMA-CC guys know who I am talking about!) This was back in the days when PL tomes were kind of hush-hush, the RCMA wouldn’t allow their publication at the time and that kind of made it the sacred forbidden fruit that everyone wanted.
I found one of my old 760's in a box when we were packing up the house a couple years ago when we were fixing to move. It still worked and I ended up giving it to someone at a CARMA meeting so I assume it is still out there someplace.
