I have written about a dozen or so Scanner Tales over the last month or so and have a few ideas for some more. I have had a few people ask me why I am doing this all of a sudden. So here goes:
I have been a writer all my life, my mom often said I could tell a story in a hundred words that others could tell in 10. I took it as a compliment, but something tells me that might be entirely accurate. Later, when I got on the police department, I got yelled at by the sergeant that my reports were too short. I wrote a crash report once that merely said, “Vehicle 1 rear-ended Vehicle 2”. Concise, accurate and he knew exactly what I meant but he said to fill the page. I then took a hint from a co-worker and wrote in the smallest letters possible in order to get more words in the allotted space and wrote a narrative worthy of Tolkien. 500 words on how the driver’s approached the intersection, flowing descriptions of the vehicles, weather conditions and drivers ensued. Let’s just say that the sergeant laughed as he read it and then made me do it right, at least according to him. After that I wrote much longer reports but kept it more reasonable.
I have had a lot of experience with scanners over 50 years or so, having used and abused almost every one made or sold by Uniden, Bearcat, RadioShack, Regency, Midland, RCA, Robyn, Cobra, Wards, Sears, Penny’s and more. As I am old and a cheeseburger away from a heart attack as well as deathly afraid I will start forgetting things I figured I would leverage my ability to espouse with my experience.
After I retired from the police department I started working for Scanner Master, selling and supporting scanners, programming and accessories. I worked with my friend Jonathan who taught me even more. We were (and still are) both beta testers for Uniden and we spent hours on the phone talking about scanners, railfanning and other stuff. We even started The Scanner Guys show on Facebook, later moving it off to YouTube. The SDS100 introduction was a coup for sure and we had a blast doing that. I retired from Scanner Master as well as the show a while later as family things got in the way. Jonathan still does the show himself, but he is still a young guy.
I had actually worked for Scanner Master for years before starting the phone gig in 2015. I was approached to do a scanner guide for Illinois in the mid 1990’s by Rich Barnett, the owner of the company. I enlisted the help of a few other guys, and we all went to work. I then edited the final version, and the Illinois Communications Guide was born. While it was very successful and well received, it came just as the internet was blossoming and printed guides were going the way of the abacus. We did some follow up products like the Illinois Pocket Guide and the Business Guide, but the handwriting was on the wall. Even Police Call would stop publishing a few years later. I did find copies of the Illinois Communications Guide in places like the radio service office at the Sheriff’s Office, a couple radio repair shops and the State Police Radio Lab. They said it was more accurate than their own records.
Speaking of Police Call; I always bought Volume 4 (IL, IN, WI and KY) every year and often Volume 3 (MI, OH) and Volume 8 (western states) as these were my common travel locations. There was a RadioShack store in suburban Chicago (Evergreen Park) that tended to get them in early each year so me and other CARMA guys would descend on that store like a pack of wolves to get it when they arrived.
I started sending in updates and corrections and eventually became a “Major Contributor”. This meant I got my name listed inside the front cover and a complete set (except for the SoCal Detail edition) each year, weeks ahead of the appearance in stores. That led me to be contacted by Scanner Master to do the Illinois Communications Guide. I actually got to meet Gene Costin once or twice, exchanged letters and spoke to him on the phone a few times before he died, a wonderful guy!
That book project was a lot of work. Several of us travelled around the state to do research. Once Matt, Joel and I went down to Springfield for a couple days to do some research. Joel wanted to stop by the fire department HQ and try to get a patch for his collection. Matt and I stayed in the car outside, we expected him to be back quickly. After a half hour we went looking for him. We came in and asked the receptionist if they saw a big black guy come in, she said, “Oh, yes, he is in the Chief’s Office” and pointed us down the hall. We went in and Joel was leaning over a map with the fire chief of the state capital telling him things like “If you put that engine here in Station 3 you will have equal coverage on both the east and west sides of the railroad in case they are blocked, you should also move Truck 2 to Station 5”. He was rearranging the entire fire department fleet for the new fire chief, that is just the kind of guy Joel is.
That same trip had us going to the airport and ending up with a handful of documentation from a friendly guy at the FAA office there. Our new friend the fire chief called the head of the dispatch center and arranged for us to get a tour and copies of anything we wanted from there. At the hotel that night we listened to a fire burning in the restaurant we had planned on eating at the next night, so that didn’t happen.
My scanner hobby resulted in me getting on the local fire department as a P.O.C. firefighter/medic, I was offered a full-time job a couple years later but declined as I really wanted to be a cop instead. At the same time, I was a full-time police/fire dispatcher for a different city before getting promoted to a Service Officer, chasing stray dogs and writing parking tickets. Eventually I moved out of the district for the fire department but was hired a few months later on the police department of a third town so I would have had to quit the FD anyway.
While working, be it in the dispatch center, in the squad car or at the fire house I always had a scanner with me. I kept one in my duty bag so I could listen in the squad car while on patrol. When I was placed in charge of the radio systems, I tried to have them installed in the cars, but the bosses would not go for that, so I did the next best thing. I programmed my favorite channels like the local railroads and even my local GMRS and ham freqs into the work radios, creating hidden Zones that only the couple of us who had ham or GMRS licenses knew about. Later when I took over the 9-1-1 Center, I put in a BC780XLT, and later a BCD996T then a 996XT in the Comm Center for the dispatchers to listen to. A couple used them to keep tabs on some of our neighbors, others liked to listen to the towns they lived in and another liked to listen to the State Police.
After I retired and started the Scanner Master gig I would help others out all day long. For this I needed to have at least one of every scanner we sold, or so I told the owner. Since I worked from home some 2700 miles from the office, they sent me a care package with pretty much one of everything. I did concede that I could support a WS1065 by using a PSR600 and the like, but I liked having all those radios around. It also helped me convince my wife that the new radio I just bought or traded for “Came from work”.
After the Illinois Communications Guide project, I did other projects for Scanner Master. I would write reviews on new scanners (meaning I would get that scanner as well). I was encouraged to be as complete as possible and use 20 words when 5 would suffice. I also worked the Scanner Master booth at the Dayton Hamvention, first at Hara Arena (AKA the “Pit”) then later at the Greene County Fairgrounds (a much nicer facility!). These were always fun, I got to meet people like Lindsay Blanton, Paul Opitz, Taka from AOR and others. I also ended up with more toys to sneak into the house when I got home.
One year I travelled to Boston and set up the Scanner Museum, getting all the radios on display, writing the info cards and wiring them all up so that they lit up. Unfortunately, that had to be all dismantled when the company moved into a new facility that did not have the space.
I have a lot of other experiences with scanners that I have not yet written about, so if there is something you want me to add to the list of Scanner Tales let me know by replying and if I have experience with that, I will be happy to add it to the list. Also, please write your own stories. Some of us will want to read them!
Look at that, I wrote 1645 words when I could probably have done it in 100!
I have been a writer all my life, my mom often said I could tell a story in a hundred words that others could tell in 10. I took it as a compliment, but something tells me that might be entirely accurate. Later, when I got on the police department, I got yelled at by the sergeant that my reports were too short. I wrote a crash report once that merely said, “Vehicle 1 rear-ended Vehicle 2”. Concise, accurate and he knew exactly what I meant but he said to fill the page. I then took a hint from a co-worker and wrote in the smallest letters possible in order to get more words in the allotted space and wrote a narrative worthy of Tolkien. 500 words on how the driver’s approached the intersection, flowing descriptions of the vehicles, weather conditions and drivers ensued. Let’s just say that the sergeant laughed as he read it and then made me do it right, at least according to him. After that I wrote much longer reports but kept it more reasonable.
I have had a lot of experience with scanners over 50 years or so, having used and abused almost every one made or sold by Uniden, Bearcat, RadioShack, Regency, Midland, RCA, Robyn, Cobra, Wards, Sears, Penny’s and more. As I am old and a cheeseburger away from a heart attack as well as deathly afraid I will start forgetting things I figured I would leverage my ability to espouse with my experience.
After I retired from the police department I started working for Scanner Master, selling and supporting scanners, programming and accessories. I worked with my friend Jonathan who taught me even more. We were (and still are) both beta testers for Uniden and we spent hours on the phone talking about scanners, railfanning and other stuff. We even started The Scanner Guys show on Facebook, later moving it off to YouTube. The SDS100 introduction was a coup for sure and we had a blast doing that. I retired from Scanner Master as well as the show a while later as family things got in the way. Jonathan still does the show himself, but he is still a young guy.
I had actually worked for Scanner Master for years before starting the phone gig in 2015. I was approached to do a scanner guide for Illinois in the mid 1990’s by Rich Barnett, the owner of the company. I enlisted the help of a few other guys, and we all went to work. I then edited the final version, and the Illinois Communications Guide was born. While it was very successful and well received, it came just as the internet was blossoming and printed guides were going the way of the abacus. We did some follow up products like the Illinois Pocket Guide and the Business Guide, but the handwriting was on the wall. Even Police Call would stop publishing a few years later. I did find copies of the Illinois Communications Guide in places like the radio service office at the Sheriff’s Office, a couple radio repair shops and the State Police Radio Lab. They said it was more accurate than their own records.
Speaking of Police Call; I always bought Volume 4 (IL, IN, WI and KY) every year and often Volume 3 (MI, OH) and Volume 8 (western states) as these were my common travel locations. There was a RadioShack store in suburban Chicago (Evergreen Park) that tended to get them in early each year so me and other CARMA guys would descend on that store like a pack of wolves to get it when they arrived.
I started sending in updates and corrections and eventually became a “Major Contributor”. This meant I got my name listed inside the front cover and a complete set (except for the SoCal Detail edition) each year, weeks ahead of the appearance in stores. That led me to be contacted by Scanner Master to do the Illinois Communications Guide. I actually got to meet Gene Costin once or twice, exchanged letters and spoke to him on the phone a few times before he died, a wonderful guy!
That book project was a lot of work. Several of us travelled around the state to do research. Once Matt, Joel and I went down to Springfield for a couple days to do some research. Joel wanted to stop by the fire department HQ and try to get a patch for his collection. Matt and I stayed in the car outside, we expected him to be back quickly. After a half hour we went looking for him. We came in and asked the receptionist if they saw a big black guy come in, she said, “Oh, yes, he is in the Chief’s Office” and pointed us down the hall. We went in and Joel was leaning over a map with the fire chief of the state capital telling him things like “If you put that engine here in Station 3 you will have equal coverage on both the east and west sides of the railroad in case they are blocked, you should also move Truck 2 to Station 5”. He was rearranging the entire fire department fleet for the new fire chief, that is just the kind of guy Joel is.
That same trip had us going to the airport and ending up with a handful of documentation from a friendly guy at the FAA office there. Our new friend the fire chief called the head of the dispatch center and arranged for us to get a tour and copies of anything we wanted from there. At the hotel that night we listened to a fire burning in the restaurant we had planned on eating at the next night, so that didn’t happen.
My scanner hobby resulted in me getting on the local fire department as a P.O.C. firefighter/medic, I was offered a full-time job a couple years later but declined as I really wanted to be a cop instead. At the same time, I was a full-time police/fire dispatcher for a different city before getting promoted to a Service Officer, chasing stray dogs and writing parking tickets. Eventually I moved out of the district for the fire department but was hired a few months later on the police department of a third town so I would have had to quit the FD anyway.
While working, be it in the dispatch center, in the squad car or at the fire house I always had a scanner with me. I kept one in my duty bag so I could listen in the squad car while on patrol. When I was placed in charge of the radio systems, I tried to have them installed in the cars, but the bosses would not go for that, so I did the next best thing. I programmed my favorite channels like the local railroads and even my local GMRS and ham freqs into the work radios, creating hidden Zones that only the couple of us who had ham or GMRS licenses knew about. Later when I took over the 9-1-1 Center, I put in a BC780XLT, and later a BCD996T then a 996XT in the Comm Center for the dispatchers to listen to. A couple used them to keep tabs on some of our neighbors, others liked to listen to the towns they lived in and another liked to listen to the State Police.
After I retired and started the Scanner Master gig I would help others out all day long. For this I needed to have at least one of every scanner we sold, or so I told the owner. Since I worked from home some 2700 miles from the office, they sent me a care package with pretty much one of everything. I did concede that I could support a WS1065 by using a PSR600 and the like, but I liked having all those radios around. It also helped me convince my wife that the new radio I just bought or traded for “Came from work”.
After the Illinois Communications Guide project, I did other projects for Scanner Master. I would write reviews on new scanners (meaning I would get that scanner as well). I was encouraged to be as complete as possible and use 20 words when 5 would suffice. I also worked the Scanner Master booth at the Dayton Hamvention, first at Hara Arena (AKA the “Pit”) then later at the Greene County Fairgrounds (a much nicer facility!). These were always fun, I got to meet people like Lindsay Blanton, Paul Opitz, Taka from AOR and others. I also ended up with more toys to sneak into the house when I got home.
One year I travelled to Boston and set up the Scanner Museum, getting all the radios on display, writing the info cards and wiring them all up so that they lit up. Unfortunately, that had to be all dismantled when the company moved into a new facility that did not have the space.
I have a lot of other experiences with scanners that I have not yet written about, so if there is something you want me to add to the list of Scanner Tales let me know by replying and if I have experience with that, I will be happy to add it to the list. Also, please write your own stories. Some of us will want to read them!
Look at that, I wrote 1645 words when I could probably have done it in 100!
