What Was Scanning Like Back In The Day?

Status
Not open for further replies.

W5AWG

Newbie
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Oct 12, 2013
Messages
1
As a Young Taxi Driver in Hot Springs, Arkansas in 1973, I purchased the Pro-6 scanner, the Don Nobles DeMod unit (He lived on same street) and used it in my Cab. I has Police, Sheriff, the "Other" Taxi Company, & fire. I also has a Layfeytte Tube Type Xtal CB Station, and bought a Xtal for local Ham Repeater, in 1973 it was 145.88 or thereabouts, and was on Music Mountain. I was always a Radio/SWLer, first built a XTAL set, with Oatmill Coil & 1n34 Diode to replace the Cats Whisker, about 1956. Today I have a AOR AR 1000XLT but living in SF, CA, I moniter VIA internet. Living in Senior Housing, I do no Amatuer traffic at all. I messed up trying to install EchoLink a while back, and it takes a act of God to Prove I am W5AWG again.
 

DJ11DLN

Member
Joined
Mar 23, 2013
Messages
2,068
Location
Mudhole, IN
Sorry for reviving an old thread, but I couldn't help myself...

As I sit here at home on Christmas Eve (family all has the flu so I'm doing the holiday solo this year) I reflect on other Christmas Eves years ago when one might as well have turned the scanner off by 9:00 PM because there was little activity other than station identifications. People, in this relatively sleepy part of the country at least, by and large went home and went to bed to rest up for the rigors of the holiday. Of course around 10:00 PM there would be the inevitable "observe for an unidentified flying object in the shape of a sleigh pulled by reindeer" dispatch, which was usually worth staying up to hear. Not so now. It's midnight and things are still very active. Apparently nowadays folks think the holiday is a good time to get into fights, have domestic disputes, go otherwise do harm to themselves, start fires, get into accidents, and steal things. Not a real great reflection on the state of our society. :(:(:(

But good news for us insomniac scanner junkies, I suppose...

Happy Holidays to everyone here on RR! :wink:
 

stingray327

Member
Joined
Jan 29, 2008
Messages
1,798
Location
San Francisco, California bay area
Sorry for reviving an old thread, but I couldn't help myself...

As I sit here at home on Christmas Eve (family all has the flu so I'm doing the holiday solo this year) I reflect on other Christmas Eves years ago when one might as well have turned the scanner off by 9:00 PM because there was little activity other than station identifications. People, in this relatively sleepy part of the country at least, by and large went home and went to bed to rest up for the rigors of the holiday. Of course around 10:00 PM there would be the inevitable "observe for an unidentified flying object in the shape of a sleigh pulled by reindeer" dispatch, which was usually worth staying up to hear. Not so now. It's midnight and things are still very active. Apparently nowadays folks think the holiday is a good time to get into fights, have domestic disputes, go otherwise do harm to themselves, start fires, get into accidents, and steal things. Not a real great reflection on the state of our society. :(:(:(

But good news for us insomniac scanner junkies, I suppose...

Happy Holidays to everyone here on RR! :wink:

Keeps the scanners busy and your ears open.
 

zzdiesel

Member
Joined
Mar 17, 2006
Messages
2,012
Location
Kennett / Dunklin Co, Mo.
One of our local County dispatchers at midnight wished all of the officers a Merry Christmas from their dispatchers. It's hard to believe it's almost over for another year.
 

DJ11DLN

Member
Joined
Mar 23, 2013
Messages
2,068
Location
Mudhole, IN
An ISP Trooper wished his Dispatcher a Merry Christmas when he logged off duty, and she returned the favor. That's about as light-hearted as it's got here tonight. Finally quieting down now. I always hate to see the holiday end but at the same time I'm always relieved when it's all over with.
 

kb2hpw

Member
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Jul 2, 2008
Messages
80
Location
Upstate NY
So true on the on-air holiday well-wishes. Was fairly common practice up here too, I haven't been up at midnight in a long time so usually miss it :) But good to hear it is still practiced elsewhere too.

Wow can't believe it has been over 25yrs and my Pro-2005 still works. Display backlight not working, keep saying I need to fix it. DOS was so much fun! I still also have a 386 machine that I ran the HB-232 interface with.
73 and Merry Christmas
 

Dann

Member
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Feb 11, 2007
Messages
583
Location
Battle Ground,WA
As a kid in the early 70,s in Anchorage Alaska my neighbor let me listen to his Bearcat scanner, I have been hooked ever since. I moved to California and became a big fan of the CHP. Low band was so cool.
 

CrabbyMilton

Member
Joined
Jul 28, 2008
Messages
890
I recall years ago back in the 80's the dispatcher(Milwaukee) called for a moment of silence for 2 officers that died in the line of duty that year. It was either Christmas Eve. or New Years.
 

ps249

Member
Joined
Jul 18, 2010
Messages
47
Location
Michigan
I didn't start scanning until 1995. The police were just starting to move to 800 MHz so I picked one up at Radio Shack for around $275. It had like 200 channels I had to program all of them in manually. It even picked up cellular calls which was half the fun listening back then. I bought about a dozen scanners between 1995 till my most recent scanner the HP1 in 2013. I tried a digital RS handheld many years ago but could not get the hang of it and did not get the desired results I was looking for. I sold it on craigslist. Last year I got thescanning bug again and thought I would try the easy to program HP1 model. I am now listening to calls within a 50 mile radius. I am hooked for life on these newer digital scanners from Uniden.
 

stingray327

Member
Joined
Jan 29, 2008
Messages
1,798
Location
San Francisco, California bay area
So true on the on-air holiday well-wishes. Was fairly common practice up here too, I haven't been up at midnight in a long time so usually miss it :) But good to hear it is still practiced elsewhere too.

Wow can't believe it has been over 25yrs and my Pro-2005 still works. Display backlight not working, keep saying I need to fix it. DOS was so much fun! I still also have a 386 machine that I ran the HB-232 interface with.
73 and Merry Christmas

I have 2005, 2006, 2 Pro-43 scanners and some others which stillwork.
 

joeuser

The Wretched
Joined
Feb 9, 2014
Messages
1,613
Location
North Central Kansas
I got started around 3rd or 4th grade with the Realistic Pro-21a. Had crystals for the towns PD, Fire, EMS, & PW. Remember how amazing it was to hear them talking. I had for a long time. Next time I got a scanner was when I was 18 & on my own. One of my first purchases actually.Pro-42 then sold & got a 16 channel model, can't recall what model anymore. Anyway, it went on & on. So skipping ahead, I settled down & slowly increased my collection. Bad part was, I wound up in a valley & didn't get much traffic. Once we bought our house, the first thing that I bought & adorned the house with is my trusty RS Discone. Wasn't until a couple years ago we went to P25p1.... Met you guys on this forum & the rest is money gone with the wind... Really back into it again.
 

com501

Member
Joined
Sep 28, 2003
Messages
1,615
Location
127.0.0.1
My first 'scanner' had tubes.

ef6116d00e35450e65777d3149bf572e.jpg
 

gmclam

Member
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Sep 15, 2006
Messages
6,375
Location
Fair Oaks, CA
CHP on VHF low

I love the low band. I can pick up CHP 90 miles away.
Only 90 miles? I am picking them up from "mountain top" to "mountain top". Listening to North White, Golden Gate Ruby, Sacramento Gray (Tahoe area), and Central Orange no problem. Plus all the channels in between.
 

n6hgg

Member
Joined
Dec 22, 2012
Messages
82
Location
Arcata California
I guess not many people remember that up until the mid sixties, you could listen to the LAPD dispatch on around 1750 khz just above the AM radio band. We lived in Newport Beach and we listened to the whole Watts riots deal break out on that frequency. 1750 only had the dispatch and not the mobiles. So my first listening was on shortwave radios that could cover from the AM 540 to 30 mhz continuous, which included 1750 khz. Of course my Dad was in law enforcement and had an early Motorola "packset" that was the size of a briefcase. Then along came some portable tunable sets that could receive vhf air and ps stuff. The rest is pretty well covered here. Those 1750 khz dispatch police frequencies were pretty much out of the twenties and thirties and continued into the sixties. Really amazing that you could hear LAPD on those low frequencies and sometimes those signals skipped out pretty far with dx'ers mailing reception reports to the LAPD. So back in the late 50's and early 60's, we had long vertical antennas on our house for MW and shortwave that also did a pretty good job of picking up 1750 kilohertz. Lots of static crashes from thunderstorms interfering too. It was AM mode modulation.
 

AA6IO

Member
Premium Subscriber
Joined
May 10, 2007
Messages
1,511
Location
Cerritos, CA (LA County)
I started out scanning in the mid-1980s, which was late for me, considering that I was first licensed as an amateur radio operator in 1962 (in the eight grade). Scanning was fun back in that day, but I think scanning is more fun now. There is much more of a challenge involved. Trunking and digital started fairly early here in Los Angeles. Perhaps more frustrating than programming in a few frequencies, but thats part of the challenge.
Looking forward to further innovations in SDR scanner technology, where I think the whole hobby is moving toward. Be it amateur radio or scanning, if I can't incorporate the use of computers, doesn't seem to interest me much. Some people on this list seem to cringe when the word "digital" is mentioned. To me, that keeps it exciting.

Steve AA6IO
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top