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

[bigcam406]

I did the same thing at Radio Shack for my Pro-2042. At the time it was $400. I put some money down on a super bowl pool and won $100 so that went on the scanner. Still own it to this day. Came out circa '97.

Thats one i have on my list to grab. Very impressive radio for sure.

 

[poltergeisty]

Thats one i have on my list to grab. Very impressive radio for sure.

Do you remember the Optoelectronics OS535 and 456 boards for it? I had a Pro-2042 with the 535 board I bought on eBay. When I first saw that board in an Optoelectronic catalog, I drooled over it like seeing a hot blonde cheerleader in Playboy LOL

2manytoyz - OS535 Repair

 

[kruser]

Do you remember the Optoelectronics OS535 and 456 boards for it? I had a Pro-2042 with the 535 board I bought on eBay. When I first saw that board in an Optoelectronic catalog, I drooled over it like seeing a hot blonde cheerleader in Playboy LOL

2manytoyz - OS535 Repair

Yep, I still run a 2042 with the OS535 board in it. I have an old Dell desktop running MSDOS and Probe to run the 535 board.
It works fantastic!

 

[eaf1956]

What is sad is that we can all relate in this thread regardless of radio type. And now we all argue about whether it's a Uniden or a Whistler or whatever. Just blows my mind!

 

[NYRHKY94]

A lot of really good comments here. I have a PRO-43 that I 'modified' (as best as we could) to receive cell signals before they rebanded to higher frequencies. Of course the channel separation was never quite right. The PRO-43 only did 25 khz while cell channels were separated by 30 khz. It was kind of fun every now and then.

I do have a question for some of the older (like me) scanner buffs. In the mid 1970's I found a car mountable VHF receiver. It wasn't a true scanner, but had a dial you could use to tune between 148 and 174 MHz. It also had two crystal slots that you could select to monitor. I think it was a Regency, but the manufacturer really escapes me. It was roughly 6"W x 8"D x 2" H with a PL-259 antenna connection.

LEH: I looked on RigiPix for the one you had (sounded familiar to me), but did not see anything that matched. I did however see one I previously owned for a short while that is a true 70's throwback RigPix Database - Bearcat/Uniden - BC-E

 

[N4ANJ]

Add the Pearce Simpson Commanche to the list. I had one of these back in the 70's. 16 channels crystal. Oh what a squelch tail it had.

 

[DJ11DLN]

What is sad is that we can all relate in this thread regardless of radio type. And now we all argue about whether it's a Uniden or a Whistler or whatever. Just blows my mind!

Sad indeed that it's come to what it is today. Used to be nobody cared what kind of radio you ran so long as you were happy with it. Sure, everyone has likes and dislikes but at the end of the day we're all just trying to hear the traffic we're interested in. A lot of the bashing and hype are IMHO uncalled for.

 

[Danny37]

When you couldn't afford scanners with alpha-tags and you taped a list of what frequencies were programmed to the back of the scanner. And you didn't have to worry about digital and narrowband.

 

[hardsuit]

You know you are a OLD Scanner Head, when you can no Longer watch PC computer Screens in your VAN with a TV tuner.

 

[poltergeisty]

Yep, I still run a 2042 with the OS535 board in it. I have an old Dell desktop running MSDOS and Probe to run the 535 board.
It works fantastic!

I have the code to open up the blocked "cell frequencies." if you want it. I think the Probe disk is in my cabinet here and I wrote the code on the disk.

 

[kruser]

I have the code to open up the blocked "cell frequencies." if you want it. I think the Probe disk is in my cabinet here and I wrote the code on the disk.

I'm good on that one but thanks for the offer.

 

[KK4JUG]

In a nutshell Milt, new is not always better. A lot of things are forced on us in the name of advancement and Improvement.

Life was simpler then with less external stimuli. A lot of the radio communication changes were mandated by government regulation and greed.

I guess it doesn't hurt, we were a lot younger then too LOL.

I guess that's the way Nostalgia always works, but boy does it work, ah the memories.

You sorta make it sound like they had scanners in mind when they made those changes. Excepting encryption, I don't think any technological changes were made with the listening public in mind. Again, excepting encryption, the scanner community has kept up with the changes, at least those that matter.

But, yeah, it was a lot simpler when all you had to do was plug in a crystal

 

[eaf1956]

Plug in a crystal! Yeah right how about deciding which crystal you wanted. And all the research about what other things would interfere from other areas. (No tone on crystal scanners)

I one heard a homicide callout thinking it was my local PD but turned out was 100 miles away in another city.

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

 

[nd5y]

..... when you could listen to Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office (LASO) on their old 39 MHz VHF-Lo band channels.

All over the country during E season or solar cycle peaks.

 

[trentbob]

You sorta make it sound like they had scanners in mind when they made those changes. Excepting encryption, I don't think any technological changes were made with the listening public in mind. Again, excepting encryption, the scanner community has kept up with the changes, at least those that matter.

But, yeah, it was a lot simpler when all you had to do was plug in a crystal

No I wasn't thinking about scanners per se I was just saying that we had good communication systems that changed as large corporations like Motorola and such introduced new forms of Public Safety Communications. Scanners have certainly kept up.

I guess my point was things were a lot simpler then and hence scanners could be simpler then and I enjoyed that. I liked the VHF low band Simplex systems. You could have statewide inner ops instantly. You could always tell if a car was close to you or not. I also loved the VHF High repeater systems as they worked so well.

It was fun as the red lights flashed repeatedly across the front of the radio and you could enable or disable an agency with just a flip of a switch or push of a button under the light. It made mobile applications a lot easier to switch from agency to agency.

I certainly don't want to sully this wonderful thread with any debates, just wanted to point out being the old fogey that I am that I liked the the way things were done then, they were simpler.

I guess that's how you can tell I'm... an old scanner listener LOL.

 

[n1das]

All over the country during E season or solar cycle peaks.

LOL. "...Beep....beep....beep....beep....beep..." LASO busy tone beeps heard the repeaters. LASO still uses the 650Hz busy tone beeps on their system today on UHF T-band.


Sent from my XP8800 using Tapatalk

 

[KX0Z]

I still have my 1st scanner. Uniden BC200XLT. Display light partially burned out battery dead. Doesn't turn on all the time. Missing some screws, just about to the end of its life. I had so much fun listening to it back then. I still remember listening to the Kansas Turnpike during the Andover tornado, that was crazy. Its not of much use now, aircraft maybe, everything around here is digital. Before it went digital it was still useless on 800mhz for law enforcement as the channel steps weren't compatible.

 

[dwh367]

I worked at Camp Koch For The Handicapped for the summer, back in 1984, which was up on top of a high hill. My scanner would hardly ever move off off of our police dispatch channel as there were numerous other counties operating on the same frequency. Back then Indiana only had a few frequencies that were used statewide for law enforcement. We were on the 155.130/154.890 pair back then. Evansville was the worst offender in keeping it from going back into scan.

 

[eaf1956]

I worked at Camp Koch For The Handicapped for the summer, back in 1984, which was up on top of a high hill. My scanner would hardly ever move off off of our police dispatch channel as there were numerous other counties operating on the same frequency. Back then Indiana only had a few frequencies that were used statewide for law enforcement. We were on the 155.130/154.890 pair back then. Evansville was the worst offender in keeping it from going back into scan.

Evansville still keeps my scanners busy. LOL

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

 

[jburgess]

When you had to go to RadioShack to buy or trade in for a crystal of a different frequency and had to place the wire connection specifying high band or low band in an regency scanner.