You Know You are Old Scanner Listener When.....
- Thread starter twobytwo
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I can remember putting a Bearcat 210 on lay-away back in the mid 70s. I still have the scanner. Living in Santa Cruz County in California it was all you needed.
OR when your mobile BC 250 would get a voltage spike when your car started and would blow it's programming--all 50 channels!
DonJuanIII
Member
I still have my Whamo-10.. along with the DSK-5 optional dial-a-frequency selector !
DonJuanIII
Member
It might be DFS... : )
You know you've been scanning for a long time when...
You remember having to manually move a switch inside of the radio near the crystals to choose VHF Lo, VHF Hi, or UHF for the slot you were putting the crystal into.
I still have a scanner that I don't know who manufactured it. It was a 4 channel, crystal controlled, VHF and UHF scanner I bought from Sears in the early 1980s for $100 brand new. It actually had Sears name on it. I left it on the roof of my Chevelle one-night and got onto Interstate 45 down in Houston and drove about 20 miles before I heard something hit the ground after I exited the freeway. I automatically flashed in my head remembering that I had left my scanner on the roof. How it stayed up there for that long I will never know. Thankfully it was about 2 a.m. and I stopped and then found it, or its parts, on the road. It was completely black with a plastic kind of chrome looking ring around the top of it. Needless to say it had come apart so I took some black electrical tape and just taped it up and it still worked. Thankfully the battery compartment dropped down out of the bottom of the radio so I could still take it out by pressing the release and having it pop out. I think I still used it for about 6 - 12 months. I know it stored away somewhere just for the memory sake.
Oh yeah, and I thought of two more "you know you've been scanning for a while when..." points.
When you remember using the RCA I believe it was called antenna connectors because that's what the scanner had
I think they all just had the female RCA inputs on them. I always hated those and I never understood why that design was made. This was before the BNC connectors became the norm. Yes, SMA was out there but not on scanners. I still don't understand why SMA get used today? I've still got some unopened Radio Shack scanner antennas, the magnetic types for vehicles, that I had bought about 5 from the outlet store when they were practically giving them away and the newer models with the BNC connectors had come out haha. Remember those BNC to RCA adapters?
Also, do any of you remember replacing your crystals so much that the text War off of them and you had to put something like masking tape around them and write the frequency on them so you would be able to know what frequency you were putting into the scanner how can I help to get cash? I still have a lot of those crystals in my toolbox of radio parts. The funny thing is that the ink on the tape has stated or been worn off from a long time ago when I didn't need to use them anymore.
[emoji23] I can see the old Harris County Sheriff's Channel 1 154.890 crystal and I think it's the spring Volunteer Fire Department 33.8 MHz crystal next to it...who knows what the third one is with the masking tape that wore off of it and it has no print left on it? And in one of the photos I just took I noticed the RCA type jumper cable plug also did I didn't even realize I had photographed haha...
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk
Sent using Google Voice to Text. Please excuse any errors I could not see or catch.
Brian (COMMSCAN)
You remember having to manually move a switch inside of the radio near the crystals to choose VHF Lo, VHF Hi, or UHF for the slot you were putting the crystal into.
I still have a scanner that I don't know who manufactured it. It was a 4 channel, crystal controlled, VHF and UHF scanner I bought from Sears in the early 1980s for $100 brand new. It actually had Sears name on it. I left it on the roof of my Chevelle one-night and got onto Interstate 45 down in Houston and drove about 20 miles before I heard something hit the ground after I exited the freeway. I automatically flashed in my head remembering that I had left my scanner on the roof. How it stayed up there for that long I will never know. Thankfully it was about 2 a.m. and I stopped and then found it, or its parts, on the road. It was completely black with a plastic kind of chrome looking ring around the top of it. Needless to say it had come apart so I took some black electrical tape and just taped it up and it still worked. Thankfully the battery compartment dropped down out of the bottom of the radio so I could still take it out by pressing the release and having it pop out. I think I still used it for about 6 - 12 months. I know it stored away somewhere just for the memory sake.
Oh yeah, and I thought of two more "you know you've been scanning for a while when..." points.
When you remember using the RCA I believe it was called antenna connectors because that's what the scanner had
I think they all just had the female RCA inputs on them. I always hated those and I never understood why that design was made. This was before the BNC connectors became the norm. Yes, SMA was out there but not on scanners. I still don't understand why SMA get used today? I've still got some unopened Radio Shack scanner antennas, the magnetic types for vehicles, that I had bought about 5 from the outlet store when they were practically giving them away and the newer models with the BNC connectors had come out haha. Remember those BNC to RCA adapters?Also, do any of you remember replacing your crystals so much that the text War off of them and you had to put something like masking tape around them and write the frequency on them so you would be able to know what frequency you were putting into the scanner how can I help to get cash? I still have a lot of those crystals in my toolbox of radio parts. The funny thing is that the ink on the tape has stated or been worn off from a long time ago when I didn't need to use them anymore.
[emoji23] I can see the old Harris County Sheriff's Channel 1 154.890 crystal and I think it's the spring Volunteer Fire Department 33.8 MHz crystal next to it...who knows what the third one is with the masking tape that wore off of it and it has no print left on it? And in one of the photos I just took I noticed the RCA type jumper cable plug also did I didn't even realize I had photographed haha...
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk
Sent using Google Voice to Text. Please excuse any errors I could not see or catch.
Brian (COMMSCAN)
I became interested in monitoring police calls around age 13 or 14. The first was a tuneable radio capable of hearing 1 channel and only if they were close by. I thought that I had moved up when I got my first crystal scanner that had 6 channels (WHICH WAS MORE THAN WAS USED IN OUR AREA AT THE TIME.) Slowly I progressed to from radio shack to regency to bearcat programmable scanners which along with using police call books I realized that there was a lot to listen to. I also was involved with cb radios (local cb club) and was able to relay to motorists about accidents in our area. There was no such thing as a tac or fireground channel as well as scrambled or encrypted channels. I kept a log of agencies that I heard as all of our agencies were on low band 42 and 45 meg. I was fortunate to have served in Law Enforcement for 28 years before retiring. Just listening the other day I heard an officer use a 10 code for a call and dispatch responded by WE DO NOT USE 10 CODE, TALK IN PLAIN LANGUAGE. IMAGINE THAT.
doctordialtone
Member
I believe those were "Motorola" antenna connectors.
RCA connectors are also known as "Phono" plugs.
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Yep you beat me to it... We called them Mot pin type... I still have the adapters to convert them to BNC.
NYRHKY94
Member
My avatar is the first radio I bought with my paper route money at the "local" Radio Shack. This model was listed as "new in 1972' in that year's catalog with the following tagline: "The first portable with every Police band including UHF!". Spent many days & nights turning the tuning knob back & forth listening to my local departments. Actually placed small pieces of electrical tape on top of the frequencies I followed for "quick manual tuning access" as needed.
I think you are right and I had first said Motorola as Google was typing things but then thought I was wrong. Thanks for clearing it up
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk
Sent using Google Voice to Text. Please excuse any errors I could not see or catch.
Brian (COMMSCAN)
doctordialtone
Member
I can relate! I used "White-Out" on the thumb-wheel tuners to mark the spot.
My 1st radio was a cheap AM/FM/VHF-Hi. It took me days to narrow down the local PD on 156.00.
My 2nd radio was a Lafayette VHF Low transistor radio to pick up STATE PD on low band.
When the town went to UHF, I had to buy a scanner.
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Yep that's a familiar-looking radio that I had, I'd have to rummage through one of my closets to find it to tell you the model number but it had two antennas a short Whip and a long whip and a nice bright dial light.
I entered College in 1971 and I think I bought that in my sophomore or Junior year and used it in the dorm room till I graduated.
It was a very nice performing radio. I remember there was no way I could bring my shack from home to my college dorm room it would never fit. That was a fine radio for police fire monitoring and music. Oh these memories.
radioman2001
Member
Started with a no brand multiband AM/FM radio when I was around 16 that worked OK on VHF Hi but was terrible on Low band. Went on to a bunch of different patrolman series tunables, then 2 Lafayette portables/mobiles (think CB sized) tunables with 2 crystal positions both Hi and Lo. I wish I could find them they worked good. Then more RS patrolman both the 7 and 77 series with crystals, at that time all the agencies both PD and FD were Low Band with the County Park Police on High Band with single tone repeater access. (If you don't know what that is, instead of PL there was a tone burst to bring the repeater up) Nobody had PL or scrambling except one agency down county who used voice inversion. I just though of another I had which was an up converter added to my AM radio in my Mustang. There also were a Peterson H/L 44, Unimetrix 4 (VHF) and 4+4 (VHF UHF) all crystal, graduated to a Bearcat 210 in 1977(still have). A complete list would cover the whole page.
Where I am going in a few years it's all 700/800 P-25, and I hope it stays at P-1 for awhile, don't feel like buying an APX.
Where I am going in a few years it's all 700/800 P-25, and I hope it stays at P-1 for awhile, don't feel like buying an APX.
NYRHKY94
Member
trentbob: It's the Realistic Patrolman 6 (see pic from the 1972 catalog)
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I can relate to a lot of this. Never had a crystal scanner but had various multi-band radios when I was younger. I purchased programmable analog scanners later when I could begin to afford them. My first digital scanner was a Pro 96, purchased on sale and programmed by Radio Shack ( they didn't do that good of a job, mixed analog and digital frequencies, eventually learned how to do it myself using Win 96) I have since purchased a TRX 1, WS1040(Scratch N Dent, just wanted it), and more recently a Uniden SDS 100 because of the simulcast issues in my area. I somewhat long for the simpler times, although the SDS 100 is serving me well and I really like all my scanners. This just brings back a lot of memories.
Oh I love this thread. I will be 63 in May so I also had and did all of the things you guys did as far as scanning.
Had boxes of cystals for myCB and so called scanners. I was lucky to work part time at (half shack) as we called it so I got one of the first pro hand helds with the red leds that scanned only 6 channels . I had so many radios in my life I cant count. Ah the good old days of radio! Steve
Had boxes of cystals for myCB and so called scanners. I was lucky to work part time at (half shack) as we called it so I got one of the first pro hand helds with the red leds that scanned only 6 channels . I had so many radios in my life I cant count. Ah the good old days of radio! Steve
doctordialtone
Member
Go Granny Go! Happy Birthday!
Kaligus
Member
ditto on the birthday wishes!!
^when you return to RR after a hiatus, this thread is the top thread, you take a nap after reading most of the thread, accompanied by much nodding and laughing about all the things that fit, and the thread is still on the main page, near the top
and your wife recognizes the banner and asks which receiver you dug out today (a gifted rtl-sdr FTW) and if you are going to turn it up (we have been married for 30 years, her father fits many of the "older" items on this list, including still having 2 Radio Shack crystal sets, she likely fits most of them by osmosis before active listening)
^when you return to RR after a hiatus, this thread is the top thread, you take a nap after reading most of the thread, accompanied by much nodding and laughing about all the things that fit, and the thread is still on the main page, near the top
and your wife recognizes the banner and asks which receiver you dug out today (a gifted rtl-sdr FTW) and if you are going to turn it up (we have been married for 30 years, her father fits many of the "older" items on this list, including still having 2 Radio Shack crystal sets, she likely fits most of them by osmosis before active listening)
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