Scanner Tales: The Regency Years

[es93546]

Had a Z60 , a whopping 60 channels!! 50 plus 10 FM broadcast. Back then all you needed was 50 to hear damn near everything.

It would seem like 50 was enough to cover everything, especially in rural areas where most of my scanning has been in. However, I was in a location in west central New Mexico where I could hear things at great distances. New Mexico had a lot of "sky islands" and those islands had repeaters on them. I could hear traffic from Santa Fe to Socorro and all the way up to Grants. I could hear some simplex traffic from Albuquerque, which was about 75 miles away line of site and 105 driving distance.

There was a mountain peak south of town where I had access to electric service. I worked for the U.S. Forest Service and sometimes I would get sent up there during thunderstorms to act as a lookout. There was a laboratory with a third story with 360 degrees of windows. I would use a good, mirror sighting compass to give them my directional readings like a regular lookout. I took my BC-210 up there and only had the whip antenna on it. I could hear the Lincoln National Forest to the southeast and the Apache Sitgreaves NF to the west. I was picking up repeaters from 150 miles of driving distance. The 210 only had 10 channels, but up on this 10,000 foot peak, 50 channels would only cover the federal natural resource agencies.

This was in the late 70's and early 80's and one limitation was the lack of information on the feds. Heck, even the state and local agencies had limited info in New Mexico. I can only imagine what a high capacity scanner with a modest antenna on the roof of that lab could pick up now. I moved out of that state in 1981 and the 80's brought a lot of new toys. I wish I had my ham license when I was in New Mexico, but then again, I remember most ham radios of that time required crystals and handhelds weren't all that good.

 

[KDT5256]

Instead of trying to revive a 50 year old radio I would look at a used Kenwood, Icom or Motorola radio of newer vintage. For one the systems now use a narrower bandwidth that the RH256 cannot be programmed to. Second, the likelihood of that old Regency being on-freq or otherwise workable on a modern system is next to nil. The administrator of the radio system would probably cringe at trying to make that old workhorse workable again.

You are absolutely right.

I didn't realize the original RH256 design was that old. Mine was NB capable and compatible with the local analog system. I did not try very long or hard before I placed the radio back on a shelf for display as an artifact in my office along with other memorabilia from days past. I acquired a Baofeng UV-82HP, programmed it and it work nicely as a backup to our crosspatched LTE POC dispatch via 911iNET.

 

[prcguy]

I've had a few older Regency scanners in the early 70s, forget the models but from the mid 70s to the early 80s I worked in a CB/car stereo shop and bought new models when they came out. The last two I had was the ACTW10 "Whamo 10" which used the aluminum combs where you broke off teeth according to a programming book. The last Regency scanner I had was the Touch K100 and that was a game changer, just enter freqs and go. While working a the radio store I took care of customer returns and met with the traveling Regency rep all the time. I even remember the 7707 Records Street, Indianapolis, IN 46226 shipping address for Regency.