There were several revolutionary scanner introduced over the years, radios such as the PRO2004 from Radio Shack, the SDS100/200 from Uniden, the Tennelec MS-1 and of course the BC780XLT.
I have already written about the PRO2004, it had lots of memory, great frequency range and other features that made it outstanding for its time. I had a MS-1 (well actually the very similar MS-2 IIRC) but I sold it pretty quickly to buy other radios as it was way over my price budget at the time.
I am blessed these days to be a Uniden beta tester so had the SDS100 long before anyone else who wasn't one. Jonathan and I made a huge splash when the late-great Paul Opitz allowed us to introduce the SDS100 to the crowds at Dayton prior to its public availability a few years back. The videos we made are on YouTube and the excitement for that radio was second only to its performance. Later I got the SDS200, again long before anyone else. I had to remove it from my shack when I took photos as it had not been officially introduced so it could not be seen on my shack photos.
The BC780XLT (or as it is commonly known the “780”) however was even more revolutionary for its time. This gem of a radio holds a special place amongst scanner enthusiasts to this day almost a quarter century after it was introduced in 2000. It made a humongous splash in the scanner community and was the object of radio desire for many.
The 780 was like Apple products, it really didn’t do stuff that hadn’t already been done but it did it better and more elegantly while looking great doing it. It cost about $500 at the time, roughly $900 in today’s dollars, that meant that it was out of reach for many. Even at that price point they flew off the shelves as fast as Uniden could make them. We saw a similar thing with the SDS100 and SDS200 more recently, very expensive but very desirable.
The big deal with the 780 was not any really new capabilities but the whole package. Combine lots of memories (500 channels when 20 and 50 channel scanners were the norm), premium level trunking capabilities for the time (Moto, EDACS and LTR), a fantastic form factor, a serial port and more and one had the best scanner available, at probably the highest price. While it might seem archaic compared to what we have these days for the era it was top notch.
At the time I was very heavily involved with CARMA, then the largest scanner club in the USA. We had so many questions at our meetings, on our email list and BBS (remember those?) that we decided to have a special meeting to discuss just the BC780XLT on a Friday night. We had such an overwhelming response to our BC780XLT Workshop that we made “Friday Nighters” a staple of CARMA activities for 2 decades.
So what was it about the 780 that made it special? Well, there was a lot of things. Lets talk physical size first. It was pretty much the same width and depth as one of its predecessors, the wonderful BC760XLT, but about twice the height. The 760 was too small for comfortable use in a vehicle for many and the BC895 (and later the 898) were much too large. The 780 was just right, a great marriage of size, layout and display. It fit under the dash or between the seats. It was also right at home on the desk. We even had one in our 9-1-1 center.
So it was the right size, how did it work? Well, just great, thanks for asking! I found that it was by far the best radio I had ever used on AM Aircraft, both on the VHF Civil Air band and the UHF MilAir band. It was great on VHF and UHF conventional systems. But it was trunking that really made the 780 shine. At the time Motorola and GE were fighting tooth and nail for public safety, utility and business communications business and the 780 worked great on the Motorola Type I, II and Iii systems popular with business and public safety and equally as well on the GE EDACS systems that were used by public safety and utilities around the area. Let’s not forget the LTR stuff out there, it worked on these systems as well.
The 780 was the right radio, at the right time, with the right size and the right features. I scrimped and saved to get my first (of several) 780. I had bought my first house a few years before and we were doing a lot of remodeling so I was limited on funds (and wifely permission) so I saved my pennies and eventually was able to get one from a friend who knew a distributer and got them at a decent price. Eventually I was able to get a second and soon a third. I then convinced my boss to let me get one for our 9-1-1 center. This let Ted (my midnight dispatcher) happy as a clam and even the other non techy dispatchers grew to enjoy listening to the State Police, the Sheriff and neighboring agencies on it.
There then grew a cottage industry of 780-specific accessories. Scanner Master sold many of these, including an internal battery pack (as the 780 had no portable version), a nylon shoulder bag (imagine carrying the 780 around like a purse!) and even a remote head conversion kit that cost more than the radio itself.
The 780 begat the BC785D. In the same sized case, the 785 added APCO-25 voice decoding, albeit with only 3600 baud trunking systems ("P16"). You had to buy the optional BCi-25D accessory card and install it in a slot on the back panel for it to decode digital, a bit clunky but it worked. If you didn't need digital you could save money by not getting the digital card, then add it later if needed. It retained the great AM aircraft sensitivity and doubled the channel capacity, now at an unbelievable 1000 channels. It also had a sister radio, the handheld BC250D. The 250D had the same features as the 785 in a handheld case, also needing the digital accessory card to decode digital.
The 785D and 250D were soon replaced with the similar BC796D and BC296D. The “96” in the model names indicated that they would work on the then-new 9600 baud P25 systems. In addition the 796/296 came standard with the digital card. In my area a local central dispatch system was the first to have this, before the 796 some of us used Motorola handhelds programmed by shady characters to listen in. The PRO96 and 2096 from Radio Shack were introduced around the same time but The Shack was still recovering from the PRO-92 debacle from a few years before and some of us just did not like the RS programming methods, the 780/785/796 seemed easier to deal with. While I had a PRO2096 and a PRO96 and liked them I still preferred the 796.
Eventually I had a fairly large stack of 780, 785 and 796’s as well as a 296D. Even after I moved on to newer radios I kept these around for the aviation performance as well as the local railroads. I later started to replace them with BCT15’s for the analog stuff and BCD996’s for the digital but did not sell my last 780 until I moved across the country and offloaded a boatload of radios. I know of several people still using the 780’s a couple decades later, they are still a great analog radio and can decode P25 conventional if needed, they held up well. While the trunking systems they worked with have for the most part upgraded to 700 MHz., Phase 2 or something else that renders them unusable on them I still kind of wish I still had a 780 to play with.
I have already written about the PRO2004, it had lots of memory, great frequency range and other features that made it outstanding for its time. I had a MS-1 (well actually the very similar MS-2 IIRC) but I sold it pretty quickly to buy other radios as it was way over my price budget at the time.
I am blessed these days to be a Uniden beta tester so had the SDS100 long before anyone else who wasn't one. Jonathan and I made a huge splash when the late-great Paul Opitz allowed us to introduce the SDS100 to the crowds at Dayton prior to its public availability a few years back. The videos we made are on YouTube and the excitement for that radio was second only to its performance. Later I got the SDS200, again long before anyone else. I had to remove it from my shack when I took photos as it had not been officially introduced so it could not be seen on my shack photos.
The BC780XLT (or as it is commonly known the “780”) however was even more revolutionary for its time. This gem of a radio holds a special place amongst scanner enthusiasts to this day almost a quarter century after it was introduced in 2000. It made a humongous splash in the scanner community and was the object of radio desire for many.
The 780 was like Apple products, it really didn’t do stuff that hadn’t already been done but it did it better and more elegantly while looking great doing it. It cost about $500 at the time, roughly $900 in today’s dollars, that meant that it was out of reach for many. Even at that price point they flew off the shelves as fast as Uniden could make them. We saw a similar thing with the SDS100 and SDS200 more recently, very expensive but very desirable.
The big deal with the 780 was not any really new capabilities but the whole package. Combine lots of memories (500 channels when 20 and 50 channel scanners were the norm), premium level trunking capabilities for the time (Moto, EDACS and LTR), a fantastic form factor, a serial port and more and one had the best scanner available, at probably the highest price. While it might seem archaic compared to what we have these days for the era it was top notch.
At the time I was very heavily involved with CARMA, then the largest scanner club in the USA. We had so many questions at our meetings, on our email list and BBS (remember those?) that we decided to have a special meeting to discuss just the BC780XLT on a Friday night. We had such an overwhelming response to our BC780XLT Workshop that we made “Friday Nighters” a staple of CARMA activities for 2 decades.
So what was it about the 780 that made it special? Well, there was a lot of things. Lets talk physical size first. It was pretty much the same width and depth as one of its predecessors, the wonderful BC760XLT, but about twice the height. The 760 was too small for comfortable use in a vehicle for many and the BC895 (and later the 898) were much too large. The 780 was just right, a great marriage of size, layout and display. It fit under the dash or between the seats. It was also right at home on the desk. We even had one in our 9-1-1 center.
So it was the right size, how did it work? Well, just great, thanks for asking! I found that it was by far the best radio I had ever used on AM Aircraft, both on the VHF Civil Air band and the UHF MilAir band. It was great on VHF and UHF conventional systems. But it was trunking that really made the 780 shine. At the time Motorola and GE were fighting tooth and nail for public safety, utility and business communications business and the 780 worked great on the Motorola Type I, II and Iii systems popular with business and public safety and equally as well on the GE EDACS systems that were used by public safety and utilities around the area. Let’s not forget the LTR stuff out there, it worked on these systems as well.
The 780 was the right radio, at the right time, with the right size and the right features. I scrimped and saved to get my first (of several) 780. I had bought my first house a few years before and we were doing a lot of remodeling so I was limited on funds (and wifely permission) so I saved my pennies and eventually was able to get one from a friend who knew a distributer and got them at a decent price. Eventually I was able to get a second and soon a third. I then convinced my boss to let me get one for our 9-1-1 center. This let Ted (my midnight dispatcher) happy as a clam and even the other non techy dispatchers grew to enjoy listening to the State Police, the Sheriff and neighboring agencies on it.
There then grew a cottage industry of 780-specific accessories. Scanner Master sold many of these, including an internal battery pack (as the 780 had no portable version), a nylon shoulder bag (imagine carrying the 780 around like a purse!) and even a remote head conversion kit that cost more than the radio itself.
The 780 begat the BC785D. In the same sized case, the 785 added APCO-25 voice decoding, albeit with only 3600 baud trunking systems ("P16"). You had to buy the optional BCi-25D accessory card and install it in a slot on the back panel for it to decode digital, a bit clunky but it worked. If you didn't need digital you could save money by not getting the digital card, then add it later if needed. It retained the great AM aircraft sensitivity and doubled the channel capacity, now at an unbelievable 1000 channels. It also had a sister radio, the handheld BC250D. The 250D had the same features as the 785 in a handheld case, also needing the digital accessory card to decode digital.
The 785D and 250D were soon replaced with the similar BC796D and BC296D. The “96” in the model names indicated that they would work on the then-new 9600 baud P25 systems. In addition the 796/296 came standard with the digital card. In my area a local central dispatch system was the first to have this, before the 796 some of us used Motorola handhelds programmed by shady characters to listen in. The PRO96 and 2096 from Radio Shack were introduced around the same time but The Shack was still recovering from the PRO-92 debacle from a few years before and some of us just did not like the RS programming methods, the 780/785/796 seemed easier to deal with. While I had a PRO2096 and a PRO96 and liked them I still preferred the 796.
Eventually I had a fairly large stack of 780, 785 and 796’s as well as a 296D. Even after I moved on to newer radios I kept these around for the aviation performance as well as the local railroads. I later started to replace them with BCT15’s for the analog stuff and BCD996’s for the digital but did not sell my last 780 until I moved across the country and offloaded a boatload of radios. I know of several people still using the 780’s a couple decades later, they are still a great analog radio and can decode P25 conventional if needed, they held up well. While the trunking systems they worked with have for the most part upgraded to 700 MHz., Phase 2 or something else that renders them unusable on them I still kind of wish I still had a 780 to play with.
