You Know You are Old Scanner Listener When.....

[trentbob]

Yep, you know you're an old scanner listener when... you like looking at pictures of old Electra radios made in the USA, you hear terms like crb research in Commack New York that you haven't thought of in years, you start to remember fire departments 33 megahertz and police on 39 megahertz and state police on 45 megahertz and fire departments on 46 megahertz, all simplex. On and on and on.

I don't know it just seemed like there was more control over things and Communications to me in my opinion was so much better especially when the VHF High repeater systems became popular in the 60s.

One thing was for sure, there were a lot of competitors out there making the radios hahaha. Still have my RS realistic Pro 1 VHF High slide rule dial monitor made in the sixties by a company called... GRE.

 

[pb_lonny]

Yes, all so true...

 

[Bob1955]

"Could listen to cellphones"
...oh boy, those were the days!

That's for sure!

 

[trentbob]

"Could listen to cellphones"
...oh boy, those were the days!

they actually outlawed listening to cell phones on scanners I think in the mid to late 80s. GRE was making Radio Shack scanners.

Because it was illegal in the United States but lawful elsewhere all you had to do was take the case off of certain scanners and cut a diode with a Wirecutter and you could hear analog 800 megahertz cell phones but they weren't trunked. There were so few cell phones around then you could still follow conversations doing a limit search. Memories.

 

[doctordialtone]

I used to drive down the highway and pull up next to cars where the person was on the phone and watch the person talking on the phone as they looked back at me.

The best part was the late night "Bootie Calls".

"Hey - it's me! Look out your window. I'm flashing my headlights. Are you still up?"

Also,listening to the "Repo Men" picking up cars late at night.

 

[twobytwo]

Part 2
Words like analog,digital, encrypted, narrowband did not exist.
The radios were not out of date when you got home with it and lasted decades.
Public Service Agencies didnt get new radios every 3 years.
You could hear all dispatch calls, not over a CAD.
Units on patrol would give dispatch a pay phone number for dispatch to call them for sensitive info,
There was no need for interoprerability because the different agencies had a common channel to talk.
There was only one broadcast transmission format.

 

[w2xq]

CRB Research Data Sheets waaaaay before Police Call. I had all 9-volumes at one time and yes, I did take them on vacation.

Heck, I remember when Tom Kneitel asked me to put together the Delaware Valley sheet; both sides, printed on color paper. I was writing 'DX Korner' for S9 at the time... a few centuries ago.

 

[trentbob]

I still have all of those crb frequency listings hanging around somewhere. They were always orange because then you couldn't copy them. I had one of the first crb monitoring station certificates. I wish I could find it then I would know what my number was. Tom was a great guy, Along with Gene Hughes. Eventually we're all going to be gone and nobody will know about this stuff.

This Thread makes me feel like I want to look through an old Lafayette Electronics catalog... sigh.

 

[n1das]

..... when you could listen to Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office (LASO) on their old 39 MHz VHF-Lo band channels. They used the busy tone beeps on the repeaters like they still do today.

I enjoyed listening to 39 MHz LASO on my Electra Bearcat 210 scanner in Hanover NH via skip during the 1979 sunspot maximum. I occasionally could hear units directly on the repeater inputs, also on 39 MHz. The best time to listen was from about 2PM to 7PM. They quickly faded away after that. I recall LASO made the switch to UHF T-band in the mid 1980s.

Another favorite to listen to during the same hours was trans-equatorial skip from a repeater in Brazil on 36.9 MHz with the input on 33.9 MHz using CSQ (no PL tone required). This repeater was constantly jammed with fire department traffic from fire departments across the USA on 33.9 MHz. At the time I didn't know where the repeater was located but enough people heard it over the years and confirmed it to be in Brazil. There's a remote chance I might still have a cassette tape recording of some of the traffic on that repeater.

All of this listening was done using the built in whip antenna on the Bearcat 210 scanner.


Sent from my XP8800 using Tapatalk

 

[6079smithw]

Anybody remember R.C.M.A. (Radio Communications Monitoring Association) out of Anaheim in the mid-70's-80's? I was member NV-011. Had their monthly Digests right next to my set of Police Calls.
Worked all the overtime I could in order to buy a BC-210 from Zackit Electronics in Sacramento... drove from Reno in a major blizzard just to get it.
The entire city of Reno used 5 VHF channels, NHP was on 42.70 and 42.88... talk about changing times!
Turned 71 last December and still listenin'!

 

[DS506]

My grandfather had a 5 band slide rule tuning radio that he would listen to when we were young. Still have his typewritten list of signals and codes used by the PD. First scanner was a Radio Shack 50 channel base. Shared info with other enthusiast on a BBS via dial up. High speed was what, 1200 baud?

 

[n1das]

Anybody remember R.C.M.A. (Radio Communications Monitoring Association) out of Anaheim in the mid-70's-80's? I was member NV-011. Had their monthly Digests right next to my set of Police Calls.
Worked all the overtime I could in order to buy a BC-210 from Zackit Electronics in Sacramento... drove from Reno in a major blizzard just to get it.
The entire city of Reno used 5 VHF channels, NHP was on 42.70 and 42.88... talk about changing times!
Turned 71 last December and still listenin'!

Do you recall if Las Vegas was also on 42 MHz???? This reminds me of the FCC's first documented case of computer interference around 1976 and this ties in with my early days of scanner listening.

LVPD (or was it NHP? Maybe both) complained to the FCC about lots of interference heard on their 42MHz mobile radios along the Las Vegas strip in the area of the casinos. The FCC investigated and the source was traced to the first mass produced video game, Pong. The Pong radiation could be heard on a 42MHz mobile radio as much as a quarter mile away. The FCC shut the offending Pong game down and took it apart and determined that the root cause was due to a combination of design faults. The FCC approached the manufacturer (Atari?) about the problem and their response was simply to change the clock frequency. While the engineers were literate in digital logic design, they did not consider the EMI potential of their product. I don't recall what happened next with the Pong game but the FCC dealt with many cases of computer interference after that over the years which led to the FCC enacting Subpart J of Part 15 in 1979 to regulate RF emissions from computers and other digital devices. Grandfathering of non-compliant devices ended in 1983. In recent years Part 15 was reorganized and Subpart J for computing devices is now under Subpart B for unintentional radiators.

During my scanner listening in the late 70s, I too was a victim of computer interference on my scanners from digital electronics being operated nearby. I built a Heathkit H8 personal computer system for my dad in 1978, along with the H9 Video Terminal and H17 floppy disk system. The system majorly trashed my scanner reception. The RadioShack TRS-80 aka "Trash 80" and the Apple II personal computers also gained notoriety as major sources of interference. The radio interference causing potential had not been considered and addressed in the design of these products.

This all comes full circle today because I studied Electrical Engineering in college and professionally I am an Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) Design Engineer. I've been working these issues for a living for the past 30 years.

You know you are an old time scanner listener when you have been a victim of radio interference from the early personal computers of the 1970s.

 

[techman210]

Regency Whamo-10 or SBE Optiscan?

 

[n1das]

Regency Whamo-10 or SBE Optiscan?

Wow, I remember those too.

I built my first scanner in early 1977 during my freshman year in high school. It was a Heathkit GR-1132 Lo/Hi-VHF/UHF 8-channel crystal scanner. You know you are an old time scanner listener when you built your first scanner in the 1970s.

 

[techman210]

Never had a Whamo- the SBE would always pick up 440 ham stuff when it was programmed 20 MHz higher.

But the SBE cards could be inserted in the front, making it easier as you were driving in different areas.

 

[EMTJD]

Knew what Channel YJ was.
Eat at drive ins to listen to employees headsets.
When you went out of town you carried "POLICE CALL" book to know what other cities freq was.
Would listen to pages on the tv show "EMERGENCY' to see how many units were needed said KMG365 in youre sleep.
A trunked system was a herd of elephants.
An 8 channel scanner was all that was needed to listen to every agency in your city.
To change freqs you had to buy a crystal.
Scrambled was a cooked egg.
Looked at police car antennas to see what band they are on.
Could listen to cell phones.
Went to Radio Shack to listen to police scanners before you bought one.
Put a scanner and Cb antennas on your vehicle because you thought it was cool.

Guilty of all of the above. Back in the day, an 8-channel scanner would have had a few empty slots and I'd STILL have enough to listen to everything I needed.

 

[bigcam406]

one of the best threads I have read in a long time. listening to cell phones on my Radio Shack Pro 2022 was a blast. also used to listen in on my neighbours cordless phones as well. and of course the local PD that only used 3 frequencies.

 

[Whiskey3JMC]

 

[trap5858]

Way too many memories- I started with a multi-band tuneable radio the size of a suit case then graduated to a 10 channel base scanner made by tennelec. Yes, many trips to the local radio shack for crystals and at times to Lafayette Electronics for crystal certificates and the long wait for the crystal to show up in the mail. My first programmable was the BC101 and then I got a BC100 handheld programmable. Good old Monitoring Times and Scanner World- real mail order .

 

[danesgs]

Your first scanner didn't "scan" but was a tunable Patrolman 60 from RS.

"Top Secret guide to Government Radio Frequencies" was the Holy Grail to FED monitoring

Listening to cordless phones and cell was legal.....

"In the clear" was not a legal phrase

10 codes were still used by the PD

Tuning your old UHF dial on your old TV to pick up 800 MHz phone calls

50 channels and service search was living high off the hog!