Your first scanner ,,,

[R0am3r]

PRO-2006. I bought it in 1992 as a gift to myself. After 14 years of being a ham, I need another hobby. Wife was thrilled.

 

[sibbley]

I've been thinking. I know these two really aren't scanners, but technically they would have been my first public safety receivers. I got both in 1987 when I joined the local Fire Department as a junior firefighter.



Not actually mine, I had to turn those in we we got the minitor ll.

 

[sibbley]

I had a Realistic Patrolman as my first base scanner. It was originally my grandfather's scanner. Unfortunately, it's long gone.

 

[BushDoctor]

My first radio receiver was an old 1940sRCA upright AM radio. On the shortwave bands I heard hams, Voice of America and lots of foreign broadcasts. I will never forget the day I discovered police calls just above 1600 on the AM band. I was hooked. My favorite police Department was the Cincinnati, Ohio Police Department at 1620AM I could also hear Wheeling West VA but Cincinnati was my favorite. I rode my bike to the Exxon station to get a free map of Cincinnati which I placed under the glass on my dads trucking company desk so i could follow every call and find the streets as I did my homework. Later I found a new Gonset tuneable low band tuner on sale for 50.00 and with my newspaper money i bought it and with my dads help I was able to wire it to the old am radio getting the 180 vdc tube plates supply from the power supply in the radio and 6vac for the tube filiments from the radio as well and run a shielded wire to the volume control to insert the audio via the center pin on the volume control as well as a nearby ground. Living in Virginia I heard more police and fire department then I could count plus skip Dallas Texas on 37.18MHz and Louisiana on 39.5 as well as most of the departments in Virginia were on low band at that time.

 

[Xray]

My first radio receiver was an old 1940sRCA upright AM radio. On the shortwave bands I heard hams, Voice of America and lots of foreign broadcasts. I will never forget the day I discovered police calls just above 1600 on the AM band. I was hooked. My favorite police Department was the Cincinnati, Ohio Police Department at 1620AM I could also hear Wheeling West VA but Cincinnati was my favorite. I rode my bike to the Exxon station to get a free map of Cincinnati which I placed under the glass on my dads trucking company desk so i could follow every call and find the streets as I did my homework. Later I found a new Gonset tuneable low band tuner on sale for 50.00 and with my newspaper money i bought it and with my dads help I was able to wire it to the old am radio getting the 180 vdc tube plates supply from the power supply in the radio and 6vac for the tube filiments from the radio as well and run a shielded wire to the volume control to insert the audio via the center pin on the volume control as well as a nearby ground. Living in Virginia I heard more police and fire department then I could count plus skip Dallas Texas on 37.18MHz and Louisiana on 39.5 as well as most of the departments in Virginia were on low band at that time.

Interesting, never considered that public safety started off in the low band, makes sense. I do remember the state police being around 42 mhz, by the time I got in in the mid 80's most everything was 155 range or 453.

 

[mark40]

PRO-2006. I bought it in 1992 as a gift to myself. After 14 years of being a ham, I need another hobby. Wife was thrilled.
View attachment 81124

The Pro-2006 was a great scanner.

Reminds me of a story. Before the internet there was a scanner publication called Northeast Scanning News run by a very nice gentleman Les Mattson from the Gibbstown/Paulsboro NJ area. He would host an annual event for members at the Dutch Inn and a picnic in National Park. Remember bringing my Pro-2006 along one year; we were informed that a member would be at the hospitality suite to perform a mod on Pro-2006 scanners to restore cellular function and quite a number of folks brought them along.

 

[squad1b]

Mine was the BC200XLT

 

[BushDoctor]

Interesting, never considered that public safety started off in the low band, makes sense. I do remember the state police being around 42 mhz, by the time I got in in the mid 80's most everything was 155 range or 453.

I remember thinking a taxi company using 152.27 was up in the microwave zone back in the early 50s since all police i knew were on lowband 37..... and 39.... and 42.... and fire were on 46....

 

[baj76]

my first scanner was a Pro-92 back in the late 90s

 

[6079smithw]

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Mama Mia! I had all those units except 1st and last one!

 

[buddrousa]

My M-400 was a workhorse mounted in my car.

 

[krokus]

Interesting, never considered that public safety started off in the low band, makes sense. I do remember the state police being around 42 mhz, by the time I got in in the mid 80's most everything was 155 range or 453.

Detroit Police was the first radio dispatched agency.

Milestones:One-Way Police Radio Communication, 1928 - Engineering and Technology History Wiki

ethw.org

 

[mark40]

One-Way Police Communications as seen in so many old black and white movies "Calling All Cars, Calling All Cars"

 

[W1KNE]

My first scanner was the Radio Shack PRO-26, four channel crystal scanner. I remember using the Police Call books as reference to buy the crystals at Radio Shack, and custom ordering ones for Springfield when I'd travel there. (The local RS only had the local frequencies). My first programmable scanner was a Regency Z30. I modified it by putting a switch in to mute the speaker, as you couldn't turn off the Key Beep on it.
My father had a Regency ACT-16K scanner, he got as a gift, that was the first scanner I ever used. As a kid, I can recall listening to the CHP coming in via double ESkip at their house. (Far Western Mass).

 

[CrabbyMilton]

Mine was the BEARCAT 210 that I got for Christmas in 1980. It only had 10 channels and no aircraft band. But I sure had a good time and was in brag mode with my high school buddies since I could get the weather 24/7. Remember you young people out there, we had no internet or smart phones with all the weather apps 40 years ago.

 

[ladn]

Remember you young people out there, we had no internet or smart phones with all the weather apps 40 years ago.

AND we had to use rotary dial phones to talk to our friends, then walked to and from school, in the snow, uphill both ways without shoes!

 

[CrabbyMilton]

They hadn't invented shoes yet. Only 6 channels on TV. Then we had to walk all the way across the living room to change the channel.
All kidding aside, scanners certainly have changed.

 

[captaincab]

Radio shack pro-2011 base scanner. Dad brought it to monitor the taxicabs he owned one day I was like 8 I started talking to a workman doing some work next door who had a scanner. I got all the local police and fire frequencies from him and I was hooked from there. Two years later I got my first handheld a Uniden bc55xlt had a whopping 10 channels and the rest is history so to speak

 

[Xray]

AND we had to use rotary dial phones to talk to our friends, then walked to and from school, in the snow, uphill both ways without shoes!

Remember the weather hotline you could call on that rotary phone ? WE-21212 ,, And the time hotline, GR-21212. Actually seemed high tech at the time, just call a number and get the weather or time !

 

[CrabbyMilton]

Yes indeed I remember the time number too. Now all you have to do is look on your phone.
I remember buying a BEARCAT 20/20 in the mid 1980's to replace my first scanner which was the 210XL. I wanted to receive aircraft and that was a big deal for me at the time. Very unusual scanner where you had 40 channels but you could only monitor 20 at a time. Like having 2 separate scanners in one unit.