Scanner Tales: The Magazines

[PACNWDude]

I admit to subscribing to many of the "scanning" magazines, was nice to read actual print. Still have a garage full of Monitoring times and Popular Communications. Great reading material, and many were kept due to interesting articles or something printed that stood out in that specific issue.

Always amazed me what some hobbyists would uncover while reporters, investigators, and others glossed over the real information, not being technical minded enough to notice reality. (I worked for a company that provided emergency communications services for the oil industry, and hurricanes, flood, and man-made issues would often result in hundreds of radio carrying personnel cleaning up waterways and beaches).

Local news would try to listen in to radio traffic, but was always cued into US Coast Guard and their encrypted 800 MHz radios instead of the analog VHF licensed and publicly searchable frequencies in actual use.

Sometimes, I would see a copy of a scanning magazine, or photo copy of a page or two for larger responses (usually a month or two after the event was over with), in newspaper reporters vehicles. They were trying to listen in.

 

[Blackswan73]

I have every issue of both MT and Pop Com.

B.S.

 

[rf_patriot200]

I have every issue of both MT and Pop Com.

B.S.

I tried to collect them in crates, but they met their demise thanks to my ex wife.

 

[dlwtrunked]

I might mention I just finished read Bob Groves autobiography. Very very little on radio stuff but interesting stories and some about business problems with his company. Since I grew up in NE Ohio (and also went to Kent State), his early days there were also of interest to me.

Amazon.com

Amazon also has a books apparently written by him on medical quackery and abnormal psychology.

 

[KB2GOM]

I enjoyed reading PopComm and MT, and, as it turns out, eventually wrote for them both. And I absolutely recommend The Spectrum Monitor -- https://www.thespectrummonitor.com/ -- for which I occasionally write.

Tom Kneitel, in my opinion, was the dean of radio writers. He could write a full page about 18 inches of insulated wire and leave you wanting more. I once had a phone conversation with him in which he said "I see my job as 10 percent tell people how to do a thing, and 90 percent selling the romance of doing it at all." I heartily agree.

To me, tuning the airwaves is like a gigantic treasure hunt . . . you never know what you might hear.

I once told K2RHI, a radio professional who controls the repeater on which I run the Commuter Assistance Network -- Commuter Assistance Net -- "the fact that you can talk into a microphone and that someone miles away, unconnected by wires, can hear you is just pure magic, and the sooner you admit it, the better you're going to feel."

And, yes, I miss those printed magazines.

 

[dlwtrunked]

...

Tom Kneitel, in my opinion, was the dean of radio writers. He could write a full page about 18 inches of insulated wire and leave you wanting more. I once had a phone conversation with him in which he said "I see my job as 10 percent tell people how to do a thing, and 90 percent selling the romance of doing it at all." I heartily agree.

My problem with Tom was in "selling the romance" he would led truth slide and that rubbed me the wrong way when he tried to hire me and told me mistakes were not to be corrected. So I wrote for MT instead and always considered Bob Grove and honest person who I could deal with.

 

[KB2GOM]

My problem with Tom was in "selling the romance" he would led truth slide and that rubbed me the wrong way when he tried to hire me and told me mistakes were not to be corrected. So I wrote for MT instead and always considered Bob Grove and honest person who I could deal with.

I enjoyed both Tom and Bob; never had an honesty problem with Tom.

 

[ki7fk]

You can still read those wonderful magazines of old online. Even the advertising is fun to read!

Popular Communications Issue List
POPULAR COMMUNICATIONS: DX SWL and Utilities hobbyist maghazine

Monitoring Times Issue List
MONITORING TIMES: DX SWL and Utilities hobbyist maghazine

 

[dlwtrunked]

Amazon.com

Amazon also has a books apparently written by him on medical quackery and abnormal psychology.

Commenting on my earlier post on that book (Bob Grove of MT autobiography) after reading it. Fun read even if not much radio stuff--lots of stories of other things - often funny.

 

[spacellamaman]

My favorite in the late 70s until they went out of print was Popular Communications. A had a monthly column in Monitoring Times for awhile but the deadlines became too difficult due to my regular job.

That doesn't surprise me, which column was it, if you don't mind divulging?

 

[SigIntel8600]

Pop Comm, MT, USA Scanning, Police Call (listed a a contributing member). I subscribed to them all. I'm an outdoors kind of guy. I used to love sitting by the camp fire, or by the lake or beach, and read my PAPER copy of these publications. I miss them all. I have subscribed to the Spectrum Monitor in the past but I really do not like reading magazines in the digital format. I still subscribe to the NASWA Journal because it shows up in my mailbox, I can take it wherever, and read it where and when I want.

 

[prcguy]

That doesn't surprise me, which column was it, if you don't mind divulging?

VHF/UHF antennas I think.

 

[spacellamaman]

VHF/UHF antennas I think.

Ah of course. It seems like a silly question to have asked now.

 

[mjdewey]

I remember subscribing to Monitoring Times, was a member of RCMA and Popular Communications and one other that the name totally has slipped my mind. Every January I went to Radio Shack to get the new Police Call. It was in another city about twenty miles away. Over the years I submitted updates and confirmations to Gene. I also wrote a article that was published in Popular Communications in the 80's.

I also bought alot of books from CRB Research. And I still have alit if them.

I really miss getting these publications in the mail each month. I love the resources on the Internet but they were also the death of these great magazines.

 

[N9JIG]

I too miss having the paper magazines around at times. I used to have a complete set of Trains (40's thru the 90's), MT, PopCom, RCMA Journal and a couple others but got tired of schlepping them from the old apartment to the new every other year and dumped them. I have since been able to get PDF's of all except the RCMA Journal and they are great for research and recreational reading.

If anyone has copies of the RCMA Journal and the ability to scan them in I would certainly pony up some cash to help make it worthwhile, I am pretty sure we could crowdfund someone to do it.

 

[p1879]

Tom Kneital was a driver behind "S9" radio magazine before he started PopComm. The mag was mostly about the CB Radio world, when it was all the rage, but he had scanner and SWL articles as well. I was an active NASWA member back then, and also read the SWL "Utility" newsletter , but can't remember the name of it.

Initially, I was skeptical of many of the low-band VHF DX logs published by "Uncle Tom", but as I explored the band with my first tunable low band VHF radio--and later programmable scanners-- it became apparent he was right. Hearing South African police ops from the US East coast was thrilling--just like Tom said. He piqued my interest in Low-VHF, which is still enjoyed here at the shack.

Tom was also involved with Electronics Illustrated as I recall. Back when Radio Swan/ Radio Americas was a USG operation, based on Swan Island, there was a lot of controversy about Swan being the true location of the transmitters--medium wave 1160 and on HF 6000 KHz (?) as well. Tom and another gentleman chartered a DC-3, and flew to Swan to confirm this, a great story still around on the Net. About everyone on the Island turned out (except the Cubano radio announcers, whom he never saw) to see if the Goony Bird would be able to make the takeoff from the small strip on Swan. Tom wrote several articles on Radio Americas for E.I. Magazine. This was sensational in the day.

The gentleman was also involved with Pop Comm, which had a lot of good literature, especially early on. Pop Comm featured a lot of articles on the huge DEA/ Customs HF nets back in the 80's, and on the comms resulting from war in Nicaragua and El Salvador. The PopComm cover shown in the thread illustrates some of the exciting catches around then....

The adjacent frequencies to the 20M band had all types of strange comms, from smugglers to "contras". Once took my brand new Icom R71 over to a friend's house who was a College Spanish Prof., about 1986, to show it off. We encountered a possible Contra logistics order being read out, in Spanish, just outside the 20M band. Of course, it could have been disinformation to confuse the opposition, but we were delighted to hear of "paletas" (pallets) of 5.56 MM and 7.62 (likely 7.62X39 for AK's) as well as rounds for 81mm "maestros", supposedly mortars. My friend was thoroughly amazed.

 

[p1879]

Thank you all for such a trip back into a fading past. Now that I think about it, weren't the Tom Kneital "Registered Monitor Certificates" from the Popular Electronics days? As a kid, I had my WPE4JNL certificate from him, framed and displayed with my QSL cards from short wave stations received from all over the world. This would have been in the sixties, and SWL was the internet of the era-- planetary access via Hallicrafters, for me.

Tom also sold a placard for your car window, perhaps like " US Government Officially Licensed Radio Unit" or some-such. Seems like he intimated that the placard got respect from the Parking Enforcement Cops, unless that is a false memory. I had the placard too, but no wheels .

He was a real inspiration to a introverted science fiction-reading radio wannabe. He cultivated something like an "espionage" persona and drove Jaguar autos. As mentioned in the thread, he artfully made radio fascinating, and the reader felt privy to "inside information".

 

[mjdewey]

I have Registered Monitoring Station certificate from them as well. KIN9FY.

 

[a727469]

I too miss having the paper magazines around at times. I used to have a complete set of Trains (40's thru the 90's), MT, PopCom, RCMA Journal and a couple others but got tired of schlepping them from the old apartment to the new every other year and dumped them. I have since been able to get PDF's of all except the RCMA Journal and they are great for research and recreational reading.

If anyone has copies of the RCMA Journal and the ability to scan them in I would certainly pony up some cash to help make it worthwhile, I am pretty sure we could crowdfund someone to do it.

I have many if not most rcma’s in a bin in my basement but no facilities to copy or scan. I would be happy to supply someone with some of them by year basically for any shipping costs. I will have to check what years I have.

 

[VK3RX]

I too subscribed to MT & PopComms, even though some of the content was naturally North America-oriented. I still have photocopies of frequency lists from them.

My preference is still paper copies of the mags. I subscribe to. I tend to read them more thoroughly, looking through them multiple times until the next issue arrives. They reside on the coffee table in the lounge, and are skimmed through while watching TV

Contrast that with a digital mag I subscribed to, I'd look through it on arrival on a desktop PC and read a few articles, then never look at it again. But then I don't have an ipad or similar , which is probably a factor if they were on it.