Who remembers the old Regency scanners?

[GMB951]

I had nothing but Regency scanners.

 

[Jwhisperz]

I got this when I was about nine years old in about 1975. I lost it and then I just found one in really good condition there’s only a few out there. Still works in my city.

 

[ka3aaa]

i have a whamo 10 from the kate 60' or early 70's boxed up in my basement. Let me tell you it was a workhorse and probably one of the first synthesized scanners made.

 

[krokus]

My dad was a Regency dealer, so I saw a lot of these various models come through the house.

 

[Engine104]

I had an MX5000. Slow scanning rate, but it had a very sensitive front end, which worked great for mil air monitoring. There weren't too many scanners at that time that included coverage for that.

 

[Jwhisperz]

I got the regency act-c-4hlu, crystals installed and nothing? anyone know troubleshooting?

 

[skidplate]

The M touch 100 that I have has the best sounding audio of any scanner I've ever used.

 

[wa8pyr]

Apart from bricking not one, but two of those scanners by accidentally reversing the polarity on the plug the HX1500 was a great radio. I've never used many late model scanners, but the user programmable banks on the HX1500 was a unique and useful feature.

Still have my HX-1500 lurking about the house somewhere. Still works, too. One of the best railroad scanners I've ever had; only thing that really tops it is an actual VHF radio (of which I have several, both Motorola and otherwise).

 

[georgesharpe]

I actually got the HX-1000 back in the spring of 84, and it was a great radio that was my main portable until 800 Mhz came out in 88. It had 30 channels and was great on all bands. There is a fellow here in Regina, that collects scanners, and he has three or four working Regency radios. He has in his collection about 60 or more working scanners.

 

[MTS2000des]

I still have a Regency Z60 from 1987/1988 as a bedside clock radio and to listen to the local analog ham repeaters. Bought it NOS off Ebay about 10 years ago. Wanted one of these in the 1980s as a kid. It reminds me of the "GE Great Awakening" series of clock radios from the early 1980s.
Works great and I dig the VFD display.

 

[N1GMV]

no police scanners in my 1969 Lafayette catalog. You guys are too advanced!

 

[rja1]

Had an HX-1500, great hand held scanner. Still have an MX-7000 that has a working key pad. Over the years, I've seen several MX-5K's & MX-7K's at hamfests, but they all had defective key pads. I even have two power cords, with the "unobtanium" power plugs.

 

[Engine104]

N1GMV... I had three of those Layfayette Guardian IIs when I was in middle school. One for aircraft, one for VHF-Hi and one for VHF- low. In fact, those were the first public safety radios I ever owned.

 

[MisterLongwire]

You guys are making me feel old and severely depressed not having any more ratshacks

 

[edweirdFL]

My first scanner was a Regency Touch K100. I got many years of enjoyment out of it prior to it no longer working.

 

[chief21]

My first "scanner" actually preceded scanning technology. It was a tube-type, manual dial Regency Monitoradio that I purchased used in the early sixties. It was VHF-only and could only receive one frequency at a time and I remember that the tuning was very touchy. It was many years later before I could buy a multi-channel, crystal-controlled receiver (still not a scanner - only one channel at a time). As I recall, my first true scanner (early seventies) was the smaller Regency model with the eight red lights that swept left to right as the channels were scanned. The hobby has come a long way since then.

 

[Ensnared]

MX-7000, Keyboard blew out, threw it in trash. Paid a lot for this radio. It was capable of monitoring some analog bag phones. It had great audio.

 

[W8RMH]

My first true scanner was an eight channel scanner like the one pictured in Chief21's post, installed in my POV using a cut down CB antenna, when I was a volunteer fireman in the 70s. I also had it tapped into my siren PA which came in handy at scenes, before we had pagers and portable radios. I believe it was Lo Band only, but most stuff was low band back then. At times it received better than the Motorolas in the PD and FD vehicles. In 1978 when I got into law enforcement we ended up installing these in the cruisers and using them for agency-to-agency comms by listening to each others frequencies and we were able to talk two-way, sort of a duplex system. This was before interop channels. I also had the fire dispatch channel in there to keep ahead of things.

 

[Engine104]

You may have been able to replace the keyboard. They were a membrane that was prone to cracking. I replaced the one on my MX-5000. I think it can from an OEM.

 

[cmdrwill]

My first "scanner" actually preceded scanning technology. It was a tube-type, manual dial Regency Monitoradio

I had the 'dual band' VHF Lo and VHF Hi desk top version. Great receiver and it had tubes, those things that lit up and would burn your fingers.
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