Those were the good - no, great - old days!

[AerialEars]

Well, as my home county and the county I currently live in have both gone totally encrypted with their law enforcement traffic (thanks for nothing, OARS), I caught myself reminiscing about the good old days.

Anyone remember these?

-Constant traffic on the state sheriff’s band frequencies of 154.905 and 154.935. I can’t remember the last time I’ve heard someone use them.

-A Fulton County dispatcher who had an incredibly deep, broadcast quality voice.

-GSP broadcasting holiday traffic accident counts over their frequencies and the state sheriff’s band (accidents, injuries, fatalities).

-Hospitals using “7” codes rather than “10” codes. This was the list of the commonly-used 10-codes with a seven substituted for the 10. 7-4?

-A series of tones on 155.340 preceding an ambulance’s communication with a hospital. Sounded like a rotary phone dialing with tones rather than pulses. I’m guessing this was some sort of selective calling.

-Gwinnett County PD having only two UHF frequencies, one for north and one for south, for all their police traffic.

-Hall County SO using a courtesy beep on their 155.670 repeater. It’s the first one I ever remember hearing.

-155.640 being shared by Walton, Newton, Morgan and maybe another county sheriff plus the city police departments in those counties. And everyone operated simplex.

-155.685 being shared by Oconee, Oglethorpe, Elbert and maybe some other county sheriff plus the city police departments in those counties. Simplex again.

-Athens PD operating on 154.830 and Clarke County PD operating on 155.010. When the governments consolidated, west operated on 155.010 and east operated on 154.830.

-The State Civil Defense, call sign KUX283, issuing regularly scheduled weather forecasts and severe weather alerts on 45.560. It was so cool to know about the warnings before everyone else heard them on broadcast TV and radio.

-Hearing an occasional mobile phone in the 150 Mhz range. (How rich must those guys have been?)

I still have my first scanner, “The Touch” by Regency. It is a 16-channel keyboard programmable scanner (maybe the first) and it cost $300 in 1978. It still works, too. I would watch those two rows of 16 LEDs chase each other in the darkness of my room after I was supposed to be asleep. I had a three element Hustler discone at about 20 feet connected to it.

I’m sure you can add your own great Georgia scanning memories! Please do.

 

[MTS2000des]

I remember getting my first taste of public safety radio with a multi-band GE radio my Dad bought at Zayre's on South Cobb Dr when he passed his private detective and security agencies license in Dec 1981 (license number was 229, if that tells you anything, Georgia just started regulating the industry that year!).

Anyway, the GE used to tune low band, VHF high and UHF. I remember listening to Cobb police on their old 3 channel UHF repeater system. PCT's 1 and 4 were on 460.325, and PCTs 2 and 3 were on 460.375. "CIC" was 460.500, and was used for license checks, detectives and rangers. I found Smyrna police using 156.150, IIRC it was simplex, I don't think they started using a repeater until the mid 1980's, when I got my first radio shop job in 1994, we had the contract to maintain the Smyrna radio system, and they had an MSR2000 for both PD and FD, dates on the trays had serial numbers indicating March 1984. Anyway...

Kennesaw, Powder Springs and Austell were all on VHF simplex. Marietta was a staple on 159.09. You could hear that repeater anywhere in Atlanta. Speaking of APD, the old 12 channel UHF system was a blast, especially the supervisors phone patch channel (F12 in their old Saber I's) 460.550. MARTA's old GE MASTR repeaters with the classic GE MASTR sound on 452.475 and 452.675 came booming in with sounds of unruly patrons, fights and fare gate jumpers until the early 2000's when they moved to their current TRS. APD detectives used to be on a VHF repeater patched full time to UHF, and Atlanta fire was dispatched on 154.19, with fire TACs all simplex. Back in those days, they had MT500's (who didn't!) and Saber I's in later years. Speaking of MT500's...who could forget...wait for it...MODAT on the old DeKalb county UHF MT500's! God I miss that sound!

and LOW BAND...Cobb fire on 46.42, their repeater used to get interference on a regular basis from some agency in Colorado! FD personnel had GE MASTR portables and MT500's, with those 30" rubber ducks. Remember those?

I remember when I got my first scanner in 1983, a Realistic PRO-2020, which I still have. Has a blue VFD display. Bought it at the no longer existent Radio Shack on South Cobb Dr at the King Springs Plaza shopping center. This (and a neighbor) led to me to amateur radio, though it wouldn't be until 1985 when my late mother informed me that "Novice Class ham radio" classes were available at Nash Middle School. Remember when Cobb county had an AWESOME COMMUNITY SCHOOLS program where you could learn ANYTHING you wanted to from automotive repair, woodworking to ballet dancing? This was before Al Gore invented the internet ya know.

What I find interesting is despite these limited radio systems, agencies didn't seem to have this interoperability crisis we do know since the dawn of the complex trunked radio systems of the late 1980's and early 1990's. Speaking of, anyone remember the Motorola sponsored hooker scandal of 1987 when Manuel Maloof supposedly took payola in the form of lavish dinners and services of ladies of the evening for the original Dekalb county analog 800 Smartnet I system? I remember hearing about this when I was in the 8th grade, it was all over television. I also remember first getting interested in trunked radio in 1989 when the office building on Peachtree caught fire (this was horrible) when it was mentioned that the then brand new Fulton county 800MHz radio system loaned radios to responders who worked that incident (it was also mentioned in the USFA report).

453.800, Cobb county Board of Education alarm board and police. Channel also used by administrators. The old GE MASTR 2 on top of Kennesaw mountain with it's 100 watt signal could reach Chattanooga. I remember every Wednesday hearing the now late Chief James W. Peel testing the PLECTRON alarm system. Cobb BOE used this repeater with an old school wireless alarm monitoring and alert system. During severe weather, Chief Peel or Bobby Moses would activate the Plectron alerts for all the schools. All the high schools had RCA TAC-TEC base stations, the one at Campbell high had the call sign on Dymo tape on the front of it!

I also remember seeing the first DUAL BAND LMR portable in 1990 at CHS. A Yaesu FTH-2070. Yeah that's right, before Motorola even knew what dual band was, Yaesu had a 32 channel VHF/UHF dual band portable on the market. And many CCBOE officers had them, so they could work the city PD's on their VHF channels and still talk to the county BOE and PD on UHF. No expensive proprietary trunking crap needed.

Those were my memories, I've got tons more....

 

[Casey]

I remember seeing some Gwinnett PD LTDs (the boxy kind from the mid 80s) with side-mounted low band spring loaded whips ...did they also use low band fairly late in the game before trunking?

 

[b7spectra]

I started my listening on an old tunable radio back in the 60's until I bought my first crystal scanner (in my avatar). Now, everything is digital and compact. I work dispatch at MetroAtlanta Ambulance and even though we are digital on the Cobb DTRS, we broadcast in plain English!

 

[SCPD]

-A series of tones on 155.340 preceding an ambulance’s communication with a hospital. Sounded like a rotary phone dialing with tones rather than pulses. I’m guessing this was some sort of selective calling.

That's what they were. Each hospital had a "dialcode" to open the PL if an out of county ambulance wanted to call in.(at least that's they way it was/is here in NC). They also used the same thing on the NC Statewide intercity LE channel (155.190). Two different tones were used, I think 2805hz on 340 and 1900 on intercity.

 

[Metrofire31]

First Scanner

When I got my first scanner in 1978, I was living in Conyers (worked for MaBell in Covington). Lived next door to a Motherola public safety account sales guy. Every conversation with him told me I had found my true hobby. My first scanner was a handheld RS four-channel crystal model (can't remember model #). Soon after than, I bought my first programmable model - the RS Pro-2001 VHF/UHF. Still have it and it still works. It has two antennas - VHF and UHF. Since then, I've owned virtually every Bearcat/Uniden scanner that has been made as well as quite a few Realistic/Radio Shack models. When I promoted to District Manager in 1979, I installed a Regency Touch M-100 scanner in my car. My office was in DeKalb Co and I enjoyed hearing DeKalb Fire on 460.525 (?) and also Rockdale Co Fire in 453.975 as well as Atlanta on 154.190, Fulton Co on 154.325. That Fulton Co dispatcher with the booming voice was Barry _______ - can't recall his last name. East Point was on 158.775 and College Park was on 154.265. Covington was on 154.340. It was quite amazing to me that I had a device that I could simply input a frequency from a keypad and be tuned in to the exciting world of public safety radio. I could know first-hand what was going on within about a 20-30 mile radius. That still amazes me to this day. Without a doubt, I will enjoy this great hobby the rest of my life unless senseless encryption takes it away. However, I recall when trunking radio came and we were told that the scanner hobby was dead forever. It wasn't long until the same technology creativity that had taken it away had given it back in the form of the Trunktracker scanner. Hopefully, that should be a lesson that causes us to never give up.

Metrofire31

 

[ButchGone]

I remember Grady Hospital EMS on Med 6 and the dispatchers were a hoot. Metro Ambulance was on Med 9 and one of the dispatchers, Barney something, used to get angry and cuss sometimes. There used to also be Paramed EMS and Star something or another and they would jump each others calls. There was also a city judge, Arthur Kaplan, who was also a training instructor for the regions EMS and he'd run under call Rescue 10. APD was also running first responder medical units too.
BG..

 

[SCPD]

I remember Grady Hospital EMS on Med 6 and the dispatchers were a hoot. Metro Ambulance was on Med 9 and one of the dispatchers, Barney something,

Fife maybe? No he was here in NC

 

[b7spectra]

I remember seeing some Gwinnett PD LTDs (the boxy kind from the mid 80s) with side-mounted low band spring loaded whips ...did they also use low band fairly late in the game before trunking?

I don't recall Gwinnett ever being on Low Band, I lived there in 79 and they were on UHF (460.275).

 

[b7spectra]

I remember Grady Hospital EMS on Med 6 and the dispatchers were a hoot. Metro Ambulance was on Med 9 and one of the dispatchers, Barney something, used to get angry and cuss sometimes. There used to also be Paramed EMS and Star something or another and they would jump each others calls. There was also a city judge, Arthur Kaplan, who was also a training instructor for the regions EMS and he'd run under call Rescue 10. APD was also running first responder medical units too.
BG..

Grady was on Med 8 & 10, Metro on 5 & 9. Barney was called "10-9 Tatum" as he would always go "10-9? 10-9?"

Paramed went under after the owner killed a young girl while call jumping, they dispatched off of 155.265. Starlife was an "unofficial" branch of Metro, they were 30 series units. Metro was 20 series (Cobb County) and 40 series (Fulton County). They also had North Fulton EMS (40 series) and General, 50 series (South Atlanta).

Judge Kaplan passed away a year or so ago. While he made great press for us EMT's & paramedics, he was, in my opinion, as useful as ta-ta's on a boarhog. Whenever he would get in our way, we would always say "is that a TV crew?" and he would go off looking for them.

 

[puterman]

I remember Judge Kaplan from running private rescue in Atlanta in the late 70's - early 80's. He was mostly harmless.

 

[trunktracker71]

youre right about th old days i miss being able to hear some of the counties hear in sc that were vhf and uhf too like charleston county that used to be vhf i could hear them just about anywhere i went from florence to columbia and noe they are p 25 and need 16 towers to do the job one done all those years a waste of money if you ask me like horry county they could be heard on 154.725 i could hear them clear as a bell anywhere i went on my handheld or base and now it takes i think 5 or 6 towers to do the job of one thats just to name a few and another was columbia county which is going to 800 type 2 from what i hear big big mistake if you ask me the vhf system they have now sound fine here in florence but anyway that just goes to show how the taxpayers money has been wasted if something isnt broke dont try to fix it

 

[procopper7005]

Well, as my home county and the county I currently live in have both gone totally encrypted with their law enforcement traffic (thanks for nothing, OARS), I caught myself reminiscing about the good old days.

Anyone remember these?

-Constant traffic on the state sheriff’s band frequencies of 154.905 and 154.935. I can’t remember the last time I’ve heard someone use them.

-A Fulton County dispatcher who had an incredibly deep, broadcast quality voice.

-GSP broadcasting holiday traffic accident counts over their frequencies and the state sheriff’s band (accidents, injuries, fatalities).

-Hospitals using “7” codes rather than “10” codes. This was the list of the commonly-used 10-codes with a seven substituted for the 10. 7-4?

-A series of tones on 155.340 preceding an ambulance’s communication with a hospital. Sounded like a rotary phone dialing with tones rather than pulses. I’m guessing this was some sort of selective calling.

-Gwinnett County PD having only two UHF frequencies, one for north and one for south, for all their police traffic.

-Hall County SO using a courtesy beep on their 155.670 repeater. It’s the first one I ever remember hearing.

-155.640 being shared by Walton, Newton, Morgan and maybe another county sheriff plus the city police departments in those counties. And everyone operated simplex.

-155.685 being shared by Oconee, Oglethorpe, Elbert and maybe some other county sheriff plus the city police departments in those counties. Simplex again.

-Athens PD operating on 154.830 and Clarke County PD operating on 155.010. When the governments consolidated, west operated on 155.010 and east operated on 154.830.

-The State Civil Defense, call sign KUX283, issuing regularly scheduled weather forecasts and severe weather alerts on 45.560. It was so cool to know about the warnings before everyone else heard them on broadcast TV and radio.

-Hearing an occasional mobile phone in the 150 Mhz range. (How rich must those guys have been?)

I still have my first scanner, “The Touch” by Regency. It is a 16-channel keyboard programmable scanner (maybe the first) and it cost $300 in 1978. It still works, too. I would watch those two rows of 16 LEDs chase each other in the darkness of my room after I was supposed to be asleep. I had a three element Hustler discone at about 20 feet connected to it.

I’m sure you can add your own great Georgia scanning memories! Please do.

Most of Georgia is still rural or semi rural and sheriff's band / state band is still heavily used. Even some counties with a TRS still use the VHF talk around for a lot of talk around, tactical, traffic, interdiction work.

GSP can still be heard statewide on VHF (if you have a large enough antenna).

A great TG to listen to in the metro area is GSP on Atlanta TRS. Its constant traffic stop and there isnt a 12 hour period that goes by they aren't 10-80 with a vehicle.

GSP in Atlanta are almost always called or involved in occupied stolen vehicles or when a chase kicks off.

If I lived within range of the Atlanta TRS I would gladly provide a GSP feed as this is always an action packed TG.

Encryption has certainly screwed us in many metro counties but a good scanner head can still catch some good events.

Happy scanning all!

 

[RYGDWW]

I got hooked on scanning while a student at the North Avenue Trade School in the mid-70s. Had two friends there that were volunteer fire fighters...one from Forsyth and the other from the Chicago area...and they had scanners primarily to listen to Atlanta Fire. I'd get a phone call in the middle of the night about a three alarm fire in an old warehouse downtown, so we'd all head out with radios in hand and go watch the action.

After the fire was out, we'd head to the old Krispy Kreme on Ponce, or Plaza Drugs for a milk shake.

Still remember the closest station was 11, on North Avenue near the round C&S building. Call would come in for Engine 11, Ladder 11, and Car 903, and studying would stop until more details came in.

 

[b7spectra]

When I was single, I always left my scanner on at night. I lived in Gwinnett County and left it on 154.145. I would sleep through every tone out except Station 11 which I guess I had tuned in my ears.

 

[RYGDWW]

We all had the RS Pro-4(?) four crystal VHF handheld scanners...worked on 9 volt batteries which lasted about an hour. I kept my crystals in an old 35mm film canister so I could switch them between Atlanta (AFD dispatch and fireground, GSP, and GaTech Police) and home (St. Petersburg).

We all went to see The Towering Inferno movie at Phipps Plaza, carrying in the scanners...talk about nerds!