When I was a 5th grader I got my first scanner. I made the decision to ask for one on the next gifting holiday after a local fire investigator came to our school during fire prevention week. While he was giving his speech to myself and the kids in my class I noticed the various tones followed by what appeared to be voices coming from his radio hanging from his belt. It was not until after talking with a much older neighbor a few weeks later that I realized that I too could hear that very same voice. I began to ask my parents for a scanner when the next available opportunity came.
So my first radio was a PRO 21. A four channel crystal dependent handheld. My parents had no idea what they were getting into. I just wanted to hear the stuff, I had no idea how it worked. Sure, I knew that I had to have a crystal but even to this day I cannot remember how I came about those first crystals of 453.950 and 154.250 other than through the help of my parents and most likely the local radio shack guy. The other two channels remained empty.
It did not take long for the third channel to be filled by a crystal that had the value of 154.130. I don't have to tell those from the Kansas City area who used this frequency nor the multitude of life changing events that frequency carried for a great part of the cities history. My history, as a monitor.
I grew up near I-435 and State Line Rd during this time. Often the Life Flight helicopter from St. Joseph Hospital in south Kansas City would fly right over our house so often and so close my father wrote letters to the hospital complaining about the dangers of them flying so close, so often. Me, I wanted to hear them. Common "radio sense" told me I could probably hear them. After an inquiry the Radio Shack guy told me I could hear them and quickly sold me a crystal for 462.95.I now had my crystal for ch. 4 I needed my dad to set the correct band manually on the PRO 21 via a very small switch in the battery compartment ( could be wrong, going completely off memory ) since this was my first UHF crystal. Again, I had no comprehension at the time of how the scanner worked,I just wanted to heard the good stuff...Thanks Dad!!!!!
It was pretty clear to me early on with this radio that I was hooked. Even my mom wanted to sit up with me until the wee hours of the morning listening to Leawood PD, Joco Fire/Rescue, KCFD and the Life Flight on the 462.95 crystal which I think was med 9. It did not take long before I added a fifth crystal of 154.740 so I could listen to KCPD. I swapped it out with Ch. 4 after I realized how little Life Flight traffic there was.
On one of my early trips to Radio Shack I remember picking up an issue of Police Call. Not long after going through the Kansas and Missouri pages and the very limited but oh so valuable listing of government/railroad frequencies in the back of the book I was melting. Listings like Union Pacific Dispatcher to Train frequenices and more exotics like the 351st Stratigic Missile Wing Roadcrew freqs. Funny thing is...looking back on it at the time I never thought I could actually hear anything like those even though KC was and still is a major rail hub and back then western Missouri had extensive Minuteman II silo networks within 30-100 miles of KC which had crews being moved to and from them all the time. Silly me for assuming.
One thing remained certain after seeing those Police Call pages. I needed more channels and I also needed to not need to have to buy crystals every time I wanted to try a new freq.
Enter my wish for a 20 ch programmable PRO2023 for Christmas. I get it and have it programmed by 10:00 am. Now much to my amazement and the rest of the MANY family members over for Christmas day celebrations we hear an address very close to ours come over 154.250 indicating one of our neighbors was having a heart attack. Now I this is the 10400 blk of High Drive in Leawood. Nothing ever happens here. Now all the family members are looking at me for the answers and I can remember the sense of importance my radio gave me for only being 11 years old. (The neighbor live for subsequent ambulance calls over the next few years)
There is no going back. As the months pass on I am obsessed enough to be eyeballing the Pro2004. This thing is a frigin NASA computer as far as I'm concerned. The shape, the buttons,400 channels, the COST!! The 399.00 price tag is not something I can cough up. Again, I put it on my Christmas list Christmas comes and nothing.....Oh well I figured it was unlikely anyhow. after all its 400.00 bucks.
A year or so go by and I have my Pro 21 and my Pro2023 going non stop. It is obvious to my parents that these "scanner things" mean a lot to me. On my 13th birthday my dad and I go to Radioshack at Ward Parkway mall and look at radios and he let's me pick out a brand new Pro-2005! Needless to say I had my hands full for quite a few years after that. But other than Police Call and the personal list the Radio Shack guy gave out after buying a radio there was not many other people to share and grow in the hobby with.
Over the next few years I would buy all the outdoor antennas Radio Shack had and tried them all hoping to be able to receive more and more on my 2005. I always judged my antenna by how well it picked up KCPD Mobiles on 154.89 South Zone from my location in Leawood. I added more radios and knowledge.
Then the internet came ( AOL Online ) and they had a scanner chat forum. WOW. Here was another new beginning for me. Here I was now learning from other people that I was unable to communicate with before. How neat, how much I learned. Then one day I get a message to join this new KC area scanner email list where people would share things they learn about scanners. How neat, how much more I learned and could now share. I now started to understand my hobby that I have loved since I was in the fifth grade. I remember feeling proud that I was invited to the group. I learned a great deal of stuff from the member of the local Kansas City group and I have no doubt some of them learned something from me.
As I got older life took over and as personal availability to the hobby became less and less and while I never stopped monitoring completely I found myself with most of my radios boxes up and my antennas rusting on the roof, if they are even still there. Less and less people participating on the local forums, new technologies that were beginning to effect my monitoring ect ect. I guess I kinda shut down, while not entirely, it was enough.
So fast forward a couple years and I find myself with a opportunity to put the shack back together, get up to date on some of the things I have fallen behind on, to see whats going on with the group. I reach out and I am told the group now uses facebook mostly and I am sent the link to the page they are using. I click the request join button.
This evening I received a message stating that the group will not accept me since I have a record for for smoking weed back in 1993.
What am I missing?
Gregg in KC
So my first radio was a PRO 21. A four channel crystal dependent handheld. My parents had no idea what they were getting into. I just wanted to hear the stuff, I had no idea how it worked. Sure, I knew that I had to have a crystal but even to this day I cannot remember how I came about those first crystals of 453.950 and 154.250 other than through the help of my parents and most likely the local radio shack guy. The other two channels remained empty.
It did not take long for the third channel to be filled by a crystal that had the value of 154.130. I don't have to tell those from the Kansas City area who used this frequency nor the multitude of life changing events that frequency carried for a great part of the cities history. My history, as a monitor.
I grew up near I-435 and State Line Rd during this time. Often the Life Flight helicopter from St. Joseph Hospital in south Kansas City would fly right over our house so often and so close my father wrote letters to the hospital complaining about the dangers of them flying so close, so often. Me, I wanted to hear them. Common "radio sense" told me I could probably hear them. After an inquiry the Radio Shack guy told me I could hear them and quickly sold me a crystal for 462.95.I now had my crystal for ch. 4 I needed my dad to set the correct band manually on the PRO 21 via a very small switch in the battery compartment ( could be wrong, going completely off memory ) since this was my first UHF crystal. Again, I had no comprehension at the time of how the scanner worked,I just wanted to heard the good stuff...Thanks Dad!!!!!
It was pretty clear to me early on with this radio that I was hooked. Even my mom wanted to sit up with me until the wee hours of the morning listening to Leawood PD, Joco Fire/Rescue, KCFD and the Life Flight on the 462.95 crystal which I think was med 9. It did not take long before I added a fifth crystal of 154.740 so I could listen to KCPD. I swapped it out with Ch. 4 after I realized how little Life Flight traffic there was.
On one of my early trips to Radio Shack I remember picking up an issue of Police Call. Not long after going through the Kansas and Missouri pages and the very limited but oh so valuable listing of government/railroad frequencies in the back of the book I was melting. Listings like Union Pacific Dispatcher to Train frequenices and more exotics like the 351st Stratigic Missile Wing Roadcrew freqs. Funny thing is...looking back on it at the time I never thought I could actually hear anything like those even though KC was and still is a major rail hub and back then western Missouri had extensive Minuteman II silo networks within 30-100 miles of KC which had crews being moved to and from them all the time. Silly me for assuming.
One thing remained certain after seeing those Police Call pages. I needed more channels and I also needed to not need to have to buy crystals every time I wanted to try a new freq.
Enter my wish for a 20 ch programmable PRO2023 for Christmas. I get it and have it programmed by 10:00 am. Now much to my amazement and the rest of the MANY family members over for Christmas day celebrations we hear an address very close to ours come over 154.250 indicating one of our neighbors was having a heart attack. Now I this is the 10400 blk of High Drive in Leawood. Nothing ever happens here. Now all the family members are looking at me for the answers and I can remember the sense of importance my radio gave me for only being 11 years old. (The neighbor live for subsequent ambulance calls over the next few years)
There is no going back. As the months pass on I am obsessed enough to be eyeballing the Pro2004. This thing is a frigin NASA computer as far as I'm concerned. The shape, the buttons,400 channels, the COST!! The 399.00 price tag is not something I can cough up. Again, I put it on my Christmas list Christmas comes and nothing.....Oh well I figured it was unlikely anyhow. after all its 400.00 bucks.
A year or so go by and I have my Pro 21 and my Pro2023 going non stop. It is obvious to my parents that these "scanner things" mean a lot to me. On my 13th birthday my dad and I go to Radioshack at Ward Parkway mall and look at radios and he let's me pick out a brand new Pro-2005! Needless to say I had my hands full for quite a few years after that. But other than Police Call and the personal list the Radio Shack guy gave out after buying a radio there was not many other people to share and grow in the hobby with.
Over the next few years I would buy all the outdoor antennas Radio Shack had and tried them all hoping to be able to receive more and more on my 2005. I always judged my antenna by how well it picked up KCPD Mobiles on 154.89 South Zone from my location in Leawood. I added more radios and knowledge.
Then the internet came ( AOL Online ) and they had a scanner chat forum. WOW. Here was another new beginning for me. Here I was now learning from other people that I was unable to communicate with before. How neat, how much I learned. Then one day I get a message to join this new KC area scanner email list where people would share things they learn about scanners. How neat, how much more I learned and could now share. I now started to understand my hobby that I have loved since I was in the fifth grade. I remember feeling proud that I was invited to the group. I learned a great deal of stuff from the member of the local Kansas City group and I have no doubt some of them learned something from me.
As I got older life took over and as personal availability to the hobby became less and less and while I never stopped monitoring completely I found myself with most of my radios boxes up and my antennas rusting on the roof, if they are even still there. Less and less people participating on the local forums, new technologies that were beginning to effect my monitoring ect ect. I guess I kinda shut down, while not entirely, it was enough.
So fast forward a couple years and I find myself with a opportunity to put the shack back together, get up to date on some of the things I have fallen behind on, to see whats going on with the group. I reach out and I am told the group now uses facebook mostly and I am sent the link to the page they are using. I click the request join button.
This evening I received a message stating that the group will not accept me since I have a record for for smoking weed back in 1993.
What am I missing?
Gregg in KC
How Sad
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