Back around 2010 I was asked by my friend Rich Barnett, owner of Scanner Master, to please come to Boston (cue my inner Loggins) and help set up the National Police Scanner Museum at the Scanner Master World Headquarters. As he would be paying for the flight, hotel, food and my time, I took a weeks’ vacation and headed to the airport.
When I arrived, I was set up in a nice hotel a short drive from the Scanner Master office in Holliston, part of the suburbs of Boston. First thing Monday morning I set about cataloging the hundreds of scanners collected over the years by Mr. Barnett. Some were purchased in bulk from other collectors, others picked up at hamfests, tag sales (what they call Garage Sales in the Northeast), thrift stores and other sources. Rich had been collecting these for years and had about 350 unique models, many of which he had multiple examples of.
I first sorted them by make (Bearcat, Regency, Realistic, Robyn etc.) and then by model. I then powered each one up to make sure they at least lit up properly. Since they would not be receiving, I did not bother to check for crystals or if they actually received. I selected the best appearing example of each model and set those aside. We then packed the remaining duplicate models onto pallets for storage.
We had some real out-there scanners in addition to the more pedestrian models. The “Scannocular” was a mish-mash of binoculars and a scanner intended (I guess) for the race enthusiasts. We even had one of those 8-track scanners like my dad had decades ago. Imagine a Bearcat crystal scanner shaped like an 8-track tape working in your 74 Plymouth station wagon. If you are too young to know what an 8-track is Google it, it was what cassettes replaced, then cassettes were replaced by CD's, and then CD's were replaced by streaming. Weird as it was, it really worked! There were many other obscure scanners, a lot of European models and some well-known brands that tried their hand in the scanner market, like Panasonic, RCA and the various department store chains.
On Tuesday we went to Home Depot and bought shelving, a mix of 24-, 18-, 12- and 8-inch selves and the verticals and brackets for them. We mounted them in the museum room, a front room of the Scanner Master offices. I think the room was something like 25x20 feet or so, roughly the size of a garage. We put the shelves on 3 walls with a row of wide shelves at the bottom and top and narrower shelves in between. On the fourth wall there were some glass display cases for handhelds and other scanners that we wanted to keep under glass. There were large windows on this wall so we could not really put wall shelves there.
Once that was done, we took a huge Astron 12VDC linear power supply (40 or 50 amp IIRC) and then ran a set of main power leads around the three walls with shelves. I tapped into the mainlines with the 12V power leads for the individual scanners, usually 3 or 4 at a time using butt-connectors. For the few radios that did not have 12VDC power they were placed strategically to allow them to be powered on a couple outlet strips. A couple scanners we couldn’t find 12V power cables for so I rewired some of these to allow them to operate.
On the top two rows we put up the big tunable receivers from the 50’s and 60’s as well as some of the colorful boxes that Bearcat and others used back in the day. We even had a big Bearcat illuminated sign. We then organized the scanners by make, and then roughly by age. The more contemporary scanners were on the 4 bottom rows.
Later, after I got home, I made display cards for each scanner and sent them off to be placed on the scanners.
Rich Barnett and I recorded a YouTube video about the museum (
) . This was only the second YouTube video I ever shot, the first being the day before about programming the then-new BCD396XT scanner by hand. The museum video was a short (under 3 minutes) one that had us introduce the museum and then pan around it. There were still some empty shelf space that was filled in later.
The museum was well-received but relatively short-lived and sparsely seen. This was before social media was a huge thing, Facebook was going strong but the special interest groups were still in their infancy. RadioReference was going strong by then but things like Twitter and Tik-Tok were nowhere near as ubiquitous as they are now. A few years later Scanner Master was relocating to a new office nearby and there just was not a good space to relocate the museum to.
Before the company move Jonathan (of “The Scanner Guys” fame) who still worked in the office packed up and boxed all the radios, power supply, wiring and display boxes. The boxes were then brought over to the new warehouse where they remain today.
The Scanner Museum was a great idea, but scanning is very much a niche hobby. When Scanner Master sold the building and moved into a new space nearby there wasn’t room for the museum unfortunately. We are actively looking for someone to take the baton and run with it. If you have a place to display the radios and are willing to go to the Boston area to get them, please PM me and I will put you in contact with the right people to see if a deal can be made.
That was only the 3rd or 4th time I had been to Boston. I had been there in the late 80’s when a girlfriend was finishing her senior year at Wheaton College, and I drove her there. I had been back to the area a couple times after, once on the way to spend a few days on Nantucket and again when I visited my uncle up in Nashua. This trip however was the first time I had been there in the winter. The weather was pretty mild, at least as far as this Illinois boy was concerned but then Friday a “Nor’easter” rolled in.
Ginger:
Did I mention Ginger yet? Oops, sorry about that. Ginger was at the time the webmaster for Scanner Master. She still works on special projects for Scanner Master. She was a women’s pro football player, and I had driven her to the airport at Dayton the year before after Hamvention (back in the Hara Arena days). She returned the favor this year. We drove from Holliston to Logan Airport in the middle of the snowstorm. Now, I have driven in Chicago, L.A., NYC and Washington D.C. so thought I could handle anything. I was wrong.
Ginger had 2 speeds in her little sub-compact car, Crazy Fast and Ludacris Fast. Apparently, a Nor’easter was no reason to slow down so we cruised up the Mass Pike at Ludacris Speed during a raging snowstorm in the evening rush hour. I had a 7:00 PM flight to Chicago and we left at 5:30 for the 30-mile drive to Logan. Now this was before 9-11 so security was much less of a hassle, so we made it in plenty of time. Of course, by the time I got to the airport I was ready to pack it in. I had never been so scared in my life. 80 MPH, inches away from a lunatic trucker while being driven by a pro football player with no vehicular fear would make Superman quiver, and I was no Superman.
Sumo Seatmates:
I figured if I could survive the 30 minutes being driven to the airport by Ginger, I could survive anything. We were delayed an hour or so but told to stay close to the gate before boarding as we would need to get boarded quickly lest we lose our slot. I wasn’t relishing being stuck in Boston another night or two and taking another trip on the Mass Pike with a crazed driver in a Honda Civic at slightly less than the speed of light in a blizzard.
Finally, our flight was called for boarding. We only had 10 minutes to get everyone boarded and the doors locked before the crew died on hours and the flight cancelled. The flight home was on a 757-300, in Row 36 of 40, in the center seat, between two guys that could have been sumo wrestlers. The 757-300 is the longest twinjet plane built and it took most of that 10 minutes to get down the aisle. Of course, I was the last one in my aisle to get on board and my two sumo wrestlers had claimed both of the armrests. I also think I was the only person in that part of the plane to have showered that month.
I was pretty much unable to move for the flight and made it 4 ½ hours without getting up. The crew rewarded us with extra snacks as they promised when they requested fast boarding, but I had to fight off my seatmates for my cookies.
By the time I got to O’Hare it had snowed there as well but the flight landed with no problems. The hard part was finding my car buried in the snow from the several snowfalls that week. I knew about where it was but had fun trying which of the 400 cars buried in snow in that section it was. It took me half an hour or so of brushing snow off license plates, and I set off a couple car alarms along the way.
Of course, it was snowing in Chicago, and I drove home in the driving snow. It was nothing compared to the adventure I had with Ginger, however.
All in all, it was a fun trip. While the Scanner Museum is a great idea for keeping alive the important history and cultural significance of this hobby and industry, it’s too bad that it has all been boxed up at this time. Perhaps someone or some entity can put it all on display once again.
When I arrived, I was set up in a nice hotel a short drive from the Scanner Master office in Holliston, part of the suburbs of Boston. First thing Monday morning I set about cataloging the hundreds of scanners collected over the years by Mr. Barnett. Some were purchased in bulk from other collectors, others picked up at hamfests, tag sales (what they call Garage Sales in the Northeast), thrift stores and other sources. Rich had been collecting these for years and had about 350 unique models, many of which he had multiple examples of.
I first sorted them by make (Bearcat, Regency, Realistic, Robyn etc.) and then by model. I then powered each one up to make sure they at least lit up properly. Since they would not be receiving, I did not bother to check for crystals or if they actually received. I selected the best appearing example of each model and set those aside. We then packed the remaining duplicate models onto pallets for storage.
We had some real out-there scanners in addition to the more pedestrian models. The “Scannocular” was a mish-mash of binoculars and a scanner intended (I guess) for the race enthusiasts. We even had one of those 8-track scanners like my dad had decades ago. Imagine a Bearcat crystal scanner shaped like an 8-track tape working in your 74 Plymouth station wagon. If you are too young to know what an 8-track is Google it, it was what cassettes replaced, then cassettes were replaced by CD's, and then CD's were replaced by streaming. Weird as it was, it really worked! There were many other obscure scanners, a lot of European models and some well-known brands that tried their hand in the scanner market, like Panasonic, RCA and the various department store chains.
On Tuesday we went to Home Depot and bought shelving, a mix of 24-, 18-, 12- and 8-inch selves and the verticals and brackets for them. We mounted them in the museum room, a front room of the Scanner Master offices. I think the room was something like 25x20 feet or so, roughly the size of a garage. We put the shelves on 3 walls with a row of wide shelves at the bottom and top and narrower shelves in between. On the fourth wall there were some glass display cases for handhelds and other scanners that we wanted to keep under glass. There were large windows on this wall so we could not really put wall shelves there.
Once that was done, we took a huge Astron 12VDC linear power supply (40 or 50 amp IIRC) and then ran a set of main power leads around the three walls with shelves. I tapped into the mainlines with the 12V power leads for the individual scanners, usually 3 or 4 at a time using butt-connectors. For the few radios that did not have 12VDC power they were placed strategically to allow them to be powered on a couple outlet strips. A couple scanners we couldn’t find 12V power cables for so I rewired some of these to allow them to operate.
On the top two rows we put up the big tunable receivers from the 50’s and 60’s as well as some of the colorful boxes that Bearcat and others used back in the day. We even had a big Bearcat illuminated sign. We then organized the scanners by make, and then roughly by age. The more contemporary scanners were on the 4 bottom rows.
Later, after I got home, I made display cards for each scanner and sent them off to be placed on the scanners.
Rich Barnett and I recorded a YouTube video about the museum (
The museum was well-received but relatively short-lived and sparsely seen. This was before social media was a huge thing, Facebook was going strong but the special interest groups were still in their infancy. RadioReference was going strong by then but things like Twitter and Tik-Tok were nowhere near as ubiquitous as they are now. A few years later Scanner Master was relocating to a new office nearby and there just was not a good space to relocate the museum to.
Before the company move Jonathan (of “The Scanner Guys” fame) who still worked in the office packed up and boxed all the radios, power supply, wiring and display boxes. The boxes were then brought over to the new warehouse where they remain today.
The Scanner Museum was a great idea, but scanning is very much a niche hobby. When Scanner Master sold the building and moved into a new space nearby there wasn’t room for the museum unfortunately. We are actively looking for someone to take the baton and run with it. If you have a place to display the radios and are willing to go to the Boston area to get them, please PM me and I will put you in contact with the right people to see if a deal can be made.
That was only the 3rd or 4th time I had been to Boston. I had been there in the late 80’s when a girlfriend was finishing her senior year at Wheaton College, and I drove her there. I had been back to the area a couple times after, once on the way to spend a few days on Nantucket and again when I visited my uncle up in Nashua. This trip however was the first time I had been there in the winter. The weather was pretty mild, at least as far as this Illinois boy was concerned but then Friday a “Nor’easter” rolled in.
Ginger:
Did I mention Ginger yet? Oops, sorry about that. Ginger was at the time the webmaster for Scanner Master. She still works on special projects for Scanner Master. She was a women’s pro football player, and I had driven her to the airport at Dayton the year before after Hamvention (back in the Hara Arena days). She returned the favor this year. We drove from Holliston to Logan Airport in the middle of the snowstorm. Now, I have driven in Chicago, L.A., NYC and Washington D.C. so thought I could handle anything. I was wrong.
Ginger had 2 speeds in her little sub-compact car, Crazy Fast and Ludacris Fast. Apparently, a Nor’easter was no reason to slow down so we cruised up the Mass Pike at Ludacris Speed during a raging snowstorm in the evening rush hour. I had a 7:00 PM flight to Chicago and we left at 5:30 for the 30-mile drive to Logan. Now this was before 9-11 so security was much less of a hassle, so we made it in plenty of time. Of course, by the time I got to the airport I was ready to pack it in. I had never been so scared in my life. 80 MPH, inches away from a lunatic trucker while being driven by a pro football player with no vehicular fear would make Superman quiver, and I was no Superman.
Sumo Seatmates:
I figured if I could survive the 30 minutes being driven to the airport by Ginger, I could survive anything. We were delayed an hour or so but told to stay close to the gate before boarding as we would need to get boarded quickly lest we lose our slot. I wasn’t relishing being stuck in Boston another night or two and taking another trip on the Mass Pike with a crazed driver in a Honda Civic at slightly less than the speed of light in a blizzard.
Finally, our flight was called for boarding. We only had 10 minutes to get everyone boarded and the doors locked before the crew died on hours and the flight cancelled. The flight home was on a 757-300, in Row 36 of 40, in the center seat, between two guys that could have been sumo wrestlers. The 757-300 is the longest twinjet plane built and it took most of that 10 minutes to get down the aisle. Of course, I was the last one in my aisle to get on board and my two sumo wrestlers had claimed both of the armrests. I also think I was the only person in that part of the plane to have showered that month.
I was pretty much unable to move for the flight and made it 4 ½ hours without getting up. The crew rewarded us with extra snacks as they promised when they requested fast boarding, but I had to fight off my seatmates for my cookies.
By the time I got to O’Hare it had snowed there as well but the flight landed with no problems. The hard part was finding my car buried in the snow from the several snowfalls that week. I knew about where it was but had fun trying which of the 400 cars buried in snow in that section it was. It took me half an hour or so of brushing snow off license plates, and I set off a couple car alarms along the way.
Of course, it was snowing in Chicago, and I drove home in the driving snow. It was nothing compared to the adventure I had with Ginger, however.
All in all, it was a fun trip. While the Scanner Museum is a great idea for keeping alive the important history and cultural significance of this hobby and industry, it’s too bad that it has all been boxed up at this time. Perhaps someone or some entity can put it all on display once again.
