As I have alluded to several times in my past Scanner Tales, I have been a member of CARMA (the Chicago Area Radio Monitoring Association) for 40+ years, even before it was CARMA.
CARMA started as the Chicago Chapter of the Radio Communications Monitoring Association (RCMA) of Anaheim, California in about 1980. I joined a few years later after hearing about it from a couple of friends who had been members of both RCMA’s national organization and the local Chicago Chapter. In 1991 the national leadership of RCMA asked the local chapters to take RCMA out of their names and so we held a contest to select a new name. Members Will Sperling and the late John Arendt independently came up with CARMA and the Board of Directors chose it out of several entries.
RCMA-CC was formed by several scanner enthusiasts in the early 80’s including John Arendt, “Father Ed” Sirovy, Mike Yanul, Ron Smithberg, Bob Parnass, Ray Prezell, Rudy Jezek and several others. It grew steadily over the years. Remember that the 80’s and 90’s were the golden years of the scanner hobby, programmable scanners were making things easier for hobbyists, magazines and newsletters were common and impediments to the hobby like trunking and encryption were not yet common. Police Call was the go-to source for frequencies and local clubs and retailers had detailed information on active frequencies.
By the time I joined in the mid-1980’s average attendance at an RCMA-CC meeting was 10-15 people, mostly regulars. I met some of my best friends through these meetings, and one I talk to daily on the phone even though we live 1500 miles apart with 2 time zones between us. While many have since passed away, there are still some of the same guys and gals going to the meetings and participating in other CARMA activities to this day.
Meetings were typically on Saturdays, starting at 11:00 AM for lunch and socializing and the meeting itself would start at 1:00 PM, usually in a restaurant in the area. We had to move many times due to closures, outgrowing the room or other factors. The meeting would start with the moderator introducing things, providing club news, future event schedules and other mundane club business. We would often have a presentation of new radios, guest presenters or a slideshow of some sort. Then we would have a roundtable discussion where everyone would talk about a new toy, frequency or something of interest. Often members would bring items to sell or give away, I often went home with more radios (and less money) than I came with.
As the hobby grew and word of mouth spread, we ballooned to a couple hundred subscribers to our Newsletter (more on that later) and meetings were often attended by 50 or more people. We outgrew several locations, and even had over 100 members attend one meeting, thankfully in a restaurant basement that had enough room and staff to handle it.
Eventually things levelled out and we found a pizza restaurant called Phillies Pizza in suburban Willowbrook. This place had great pizza, chicken, Italian beef, and other fare but the jewel in the crown was the staff. We had a couple of regular servers including Jennifer and especially Marion. Marion would handle the entire room with ease, and we would schedule our meetings based on her availability. We made sure she was well tipped by all, and she appreciated it. We even took up a collection at each December meeting for a Christmas gift for her.
We would schedule meetings every other month and Friday Nighters on the opposite months, so we had an event every month. When Phillies Pizza closed their doors after losing their lease, we had to move to another place, but it just wasn’t the same. We still see Marion however as she now works at Papa’s Pizza Place near the former Community Resource Center which is owned by the same family.
Occasional special meetings would be held. Several were at John’s house in the far west suburbs. He had a large basement, and we would set up a projector and have a slide show. John also produced a documentation of Illinois State Police radio systems called “Code 101” that was considered the bible of the topic.
In 1988 there was a shakeup in the RCMA-CC leadership. Due to some issues with our fearless leader, he was deposed, and a new Board was elected. This was all smoothed over quickly and even the deposed leader acknowledged the club was better off for it. The club grew, the Newsletter got better, and everyone was happy.
Later, when the BC780XLT was introduced in 2000 there was so much interest that we had a special workshop dedicated to just this radio. This was a huge success with several dozen members attending, all either having or wanting this revolutionary new radio. This was held at the Woodridge Police Community Resource Center, basically two connected storefronts in a strip mall used by the Village for a remote police post, classroom and community meetings. We all met for pizza at a neighboring pizza joint before the workshop.
Due to the success of this workshop we decided to have regular “Friday Nighters”, informal get-togethers of the members to eat, drink and be merry. For several years we used this facility until it closed when one of our members suggested we meet at one of the Illinois Tollway Oases. These Oases were basically a food court on a bridge over the tollway. We met at the O’Hare Oasis on the Tri-State Tollway. It worked out great, we had plenty of room, several fast-food places to get vittles from and access was easy.
The RCMA-CC (and later CARMA) Newsletter ranged from a 1 or 2 page typed and hand-written notice, pretty much to announce the next meeting to 10-12 pages of frequencies, articles and maps. Much of it was the notes from the prior meeting to memorialize the info for members who could not attend but there was plenty of original content as well.
Originally the Newsletter was mailed by use of subscriber-supplied stamped envelopes. If you had an envelope on file, you got the newsletter. Later, we converted to a subscription model and formatted the last page to act as a cover sheet with a return address and space for a mailing label. Due to the wonders of a Mac Plus, an ImageWriter and FileMaker Pro we were able to keep track of subscribers and make mailing labels.
We went through several editors over the years. John Arendt would fill in for Father Ed at times. After the Junta, I edited it for several years, then Ted and a couple others did so now and again. Eventually in 1998 the Internet became ubiquitous enough to stop printing the Newsletter and it was converted solely to an emailed one. Even that was later ended, and all operations moved over to an email list-serve, OneList, later known as E-Groups, and still later taken over by Yahoo Groups. After Yahoo Groups closed, we switched to groups.io where we remain today.
We had a website for several years but decided to close that down in favor of a Facebook group and the email list. The old web address now points to a dating site.
RCMA-CC and CARMA hosted many tours over the years. Dispatch Centers were the most popular of course but occasionally we got into airport control towers, Command Centers and broadcast facilities.
In the 1990’s I was approached by Scanner Master to produce a regional scanner guide for the Chicago area. After some negotiations (and expanding it to cover all of Illinois) several of us went to work and created the “Illinois Communications Guide”, a comprehensive documentation of scanner frequencies for the State of Illinois. Several of us worked on this book and I did the final editing and layout. Among the 5 principal participants we scoured the State to acquire information and verify frequencies. The book was very successful, but it came out just as the Internet started to kill off printed guides, so no follow-up version was produced.
Many of the members were and are Ham Radio Operators. While not a major part of the club operations we did facilitate a simplex channel (145.770 MHz.) for club operations. Most of the original founders were hams and probably half of the current membership are.
CARMA picnics were a popular activity. I have discussed some of these in another edition of Scanner Tales. We had some great stories come out of these picnics, like almost decapitating a horseback rider with a wire antenna, facing off with a motorcycle gang and stacking picnic tables up to get on the roof of the shelter to mount antennas.
Eventually the hobby lost its mojo somewhat. With the rise of the Internet, the need and desire for in-person meetings faded. After I moved out of the Chicago area in 2015 the club soldiered on for a while but eventually the Friday Nighters ended, and meetings became more sporadic. Now Will tried to organize one or two a year depending on availability of a venue that will accommodate us. It is surprisingly hard these days to get a restaurant to close off a room for 3-4 hours and dedicate wait staff to serve a group of aromatic scanner nerds, but Will usually succeeds.
CARMA and the preceding RCMA Chicago Chapter has been one of the most successful and long-lasting scanner clubs around. When most others have ended operations, CARMA remains. Sure, we are not as big and active as we once were, but we still get together, share info and socialize.
CARMA started as the Chicago Chapter of the Radio Communications Monitoring Association (RCMA) of Anaheim, California in about 1980. I joined a few years later after hearing about it from a couple of friends who had been members of both RCMA’s national organization and the local Chicago Chapter. In 1991 the national leadership of RCMA asked the local chapters to take RCMA out of their names and so we held a contest to select a new name. Members Will Sperling and the late John Arendt independently came up with CARMA and the Board of Directors chose it out of several entries.
RCMA-CC was formed by several scanner enthusiasts in the early 80’s including John Arendt, “Father Ed” Sirovy, Mike Yanul, Ron Smithberg, Bob Parnass, Ray Prezell, Rudy Jezek and several others. It grew steadily over the years. Remember that the 80’s and 90’s were the golden years of the scanner hobby, programmable scanners were making things easier for hobbyists, magazines and newsletters were common and impediments to the hobby like trunking and encryption were not yet common. Police Call was the go-to source for frequencies and local clubs and retailers had detailed information on active frequencies.
By the time I joined in the mid-1980’s average attendance at an RCMA-CC meeting was 10-15 people, mostly regulars. I met some of my best friends through these meetings, and one I talk to daily on the phone even though we live 1500 miles apart with 2 time zones between us. While many have since passed away, there are still some of the same guys and gals going to the meetings and participating in other CARMA activities to this day.
Meetings were typically on Saturdays, starting at 11:00 AM for lunch and socializing and the meeting itself would start at 1:00 PM, usually in a restaurant in the area. We had to move many times due to closures, outgrowing the room or other factors. The meeting would start with the moderator introducing things, providing club news, future event schedules and other mundane club business. We would often have a presentation of new radios, guest presenters or a slideshow of some sort. Then we would have a roundtable discussion where everyone would talk about a new toy, frequency or something of interest. Often members would bring items to sell or give away, I often went home with more radios (and less money) than I came with.
As the hobby grew and word of mouth spread, we ballooned to a couple hundred subscribers to our Newsletter (more on that later) and meetings were often attended by 50 or more people. We outgrew several locations, and even had over 100 members attend one meeting, thankfully in a restaurant basement that had enough room and staff to handle it.
Eventually things levelled out and we found a pizza restaurant called Phillies Pizza in suburban Willowbrook. This place had great pizza, chicken, Italian beef, and other fare but the jewel in the crown was the staff. We had a couple of regular servers including Jennifer and especially Marion. Marion would handle the entire room with ease, and we would schedule our meetings based on her availability. We made sure she was well tipped by all, and she appreciated it. We even took up a collection at each December meeting for a Christmas gift for her.
We would schedule meetings every other month and Friday Nighters on the opposite months, so we had an event every month. When Phillies Pizza closed their doors after losing their lease, we had to move to another place, but it just wasn’t the same. We still see Marion however as she now works at Papa’s Pizza Place near the former Community Resource Center which is owned by the same family.
Occasional special meetings would be held. Several were at John’s house in the far west suburbs. He had a large basement, and we would set up a projector and have a slide show. John also produced a documentation of Illinois State Police radio systems called “Code 101” that was considered the bible of the topic.
In 1988 there was a shakeup in the RCMA-CC leadership. Due to some issues with our fearless leader, he was deposed, and a new Board was elected. This was all smoothed over quickly and even the deposed leader acknowledged the club was better off for it. The club grew, the Newsletter got better, and everyone was happy.
Later, when the BC780XLT was introduced in 2000 there was so much interest that we had a special workshop dedicated to just this radio. This was a huge success with several dozen members attending, all either having or wanting this revolutionary new radio. This was held at the Woodridge Police Community Resource Center, basically two connected storefronts in a strip mall used by the Village for a remote police post, classroom and community meetings. We all met for pizza at a neighboring pizza joint before the workshop.
Due to the success of this workshop we decided to have regular “Friday Nighters”, informal get-togethers of the members to eat, drink and be merry. For several years we used this facility until it closed when one of our members suggested we meet at one of the Illinois Tollway Oases. These Oases were basically a food court on a bridge over the tollway. We met at the O’Hare Oasis on the Tri-State Tollway. It worked out great, we had plenty of room, several fast-food places to get vittles from and access was easy.
The RCMA-CC (and later CARMA) Newsletter ranged from a 1 or 2 page typed and hand-written notice, pretty much to announce the next meeting to 10-12 pages of frequencies, articles and maps. Much of it was the notes from the prior meeting to memorialize the info for members who could not attend but there was plenty of original content as well.
Originally the Newsletter was mailed by use of subscriber-supplied stamped envelopes. If you had an envelope on file, you got the newsletter. Later, we converted to a subscription model and formatted the last page to act as a cover sheet with a return address and space for a mailing label. Due to the wonders of a Mac Plus, an ImageWriter and FileMaker Pro we were able to keep track of subscribers and make mailing labels.
We went through several editors over the years. John Arendt would fill in for Father Ed at times. After the Junta, I edited it for several years, then Ted and a couple others did so now and again. Eventually in 1998 the Internet became ubiquitous enough to stop printing the Newsletter and it was converted solely to an emailed one. Even that was later ended, and all operations moved over to an email list-serve, OneList, later known as E-Groups, and still later taken over by Yahoo Groups. After Yahoo Groups closed, we switched to groups.io where we remain today.
We had a website for several years but decided to close that down in favor of a Facebook group and the email list. The old web address now points to a dating site.
RCMA-CC and CARMA hosted many tours over the years. Dispatch Centers were the most popular of course but occasionally we got into airport control towers, Command Centers and broadcast facilities.
In the 1990’s I was approached by Scanner Master to produce a regional scanner guide for the Chicago area. After some negotiations (and expanding it to cover all of Illinois) several of us went to work and created the “Illinois Communications Guide”, a comprehensive documentation of scanner frequencies for the State of Illinois. Several of us worked on this book and I did the final editing and layout. Among the 5 principal participants we scoured the State to acquire information and verify frequencies. The book was very successful, but it came out just as the Internet started to kill off printed guides, so no follow-up version was produced.
Many of the members were and are Ham Radio Operators. While not a major part of the club operations we did facilitate a simplex channel (145.770 MHz.) for club operations. Most of the original founders were hams and probably half of the current membership are.
CARMA picnics were a popular activity. I have discussed some of these in another edition of Scanner Tales. We had some great stories come out of these picnics, like almost decapitating a horseback rider with a wire antenna, facing off with a motorcycle gang and stacking picnic tables up to get on the roof of the shelter to mount antennas.
Eventually the hobby lost its mojo somewhat. With the rise of the Internet, the need and desire for in-person meetings faded. After I moved out of the Chicago area in 2015 the club soldiered on for a while but eventually the Friday Nighters ended, and meetings became more sporadic. Now Will tried to organize one or two a year depending on availability of a venue that will accommodate us. It is surprisingly hard these days to get a restaurant to close off a room for 3-4 hours and dedicate wait staff to serve a group of aromatic scanner nerds, but Will usually succeeds.
CARMA and the preceding RCMA Chicago Chapter has been one of the most successful and long-lasting scanner clubs around. When most others have ended operations, CARMA remains. Sure, we are not as big and active as we once were, but we still get together, share info and socialize.
