Did a scanner lead me to a crazy rescue mission?

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turbo
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I'm officially a "geezer"

Today I took delivery of a Uniden Bearcat BCT8 scanner and programmed in the relevant frequencies for the Maine Warden Service, State Police, and regional sheriff's departments, municipal cops, emergency agencies, etc.

It's cheap entertainment, and it might lead me to photo-ops. Jump in the truck with Duke and take a ride. Today, a guy in the next town cut off his lower arm in a mowing accident, and the rescue squad requested a "life-flight" helicopter evacuation. The resultant communications gave a "Keystone Cops" air to the whole situation, since the town cops and rescue wanted to set up a landing zone in Madison, and the were overridden by other powers who wanted the victim transported to the nearest hospital with a helicopter pad. Nobody seemed to be able to coordinate ETAs or figure out whether the patient should be taken right to the ER or be held at the pad for a flight to a more advanced treatment unit.
 
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turbo-1 said:
Today I took delivery of a Uniden Bearcat BCT8 scanner and programmed in the relevant frequencies for the Maine Warden Service, State Police, and regional sheriff's departments, municipal cops, emergency agencies, etc.

It's cheap entertainment, ...

10-4 Good Buddy.

As a kid, I would fix up and listen to those old multi-band, tube type, AM radios. With a good antenna, you could get broadcast from all over the world. Not only entertainment, but education...sort of.

Edit: I guess as a geezer, you're reliving your childhood?
 


dlgoff said:
10-4 Good Buddy.

As a kid, I would fix up and listen to those old multi-band, tube type, AM radios. With a good antenna, you could get broadcast from all over the world. Not only entertainment, but education...sort of.

Edit: I guess as a geezer, you're reliving your childhood?
In a way, I guess. At least modern scanners allow you to monitor a bunch of frequencies. The old multi-band radios were nice, but you had to dial them into a single frequency and monitor just that one.

Last year, I sold an old Zenith multi-band console radio that I had fixed up. It was one of these.

http://www.oldradiozone.com/Z_9S262.html

Troubleshooting and repairing tube amps is pretty easy. That radio posed a few problems for me, but I got through them.
 


I use to listen to the scanner with my Grandpa, he was fairly addicted to it. He rigged the back side of a cupboard, so that a panel would move and the radio would be hidden, just in case they were outlawed.