MyGMRS Members Museum

[mcallahan]

Definitely never seen a Tompkins Tunaverter before, very cool!  Here's something I picked up last week - a Realistic Patrolman Pro 3A:

 

 

 

 

 

 

I found this on eBay for $35 and is in good cosmetic and working condition.  Here is the original Radio Shack catalog ad from 1973 (image courtesy of RadioShackCatalogs.com).  The MSRP of $179.95 is a little over $1000 today!

 

http://www.radioshackcatalogs.com/catalogs/1973/pages/171.jpg

[Hans]

"The Only Monitor You'll Ever Need!"

 

LOL

[mcallahan]

"The Only Monitor You'll Ever Need!"

 

LOL

 

I got a good chuckle at that too.  If you did purchase this new in 1973 though, you would indeed have had many years of use before 800 MHz, trunked, and digital systems became widespread.  I don't exactly know when, but the UHF-T band was opened up for public safety land-mobile use in certain cities at some point.  Growing up in the Chicago area, many suburban agencies were operating in the 470 MHz range, just above the receive range of this radio.  I still hear plenty on this radio though.  Phoenix metro area FD still simulcasts on the same VHF frequency they've been using for years, and the state police are still on a conventional UHF system.  Rural agencies in Arizona are still largely on VHF, and with a roof antenna I can hear many of the surrounding counties.  I'm currently working on fixing up this radio a bit, including replacing the bulbs on the dial.  I'll post some pics in the near future when I have it all fixed up!

[PastorGary]

My current "oldies" includes operational Patrolman Pro 1 (148 to 174) mhz.)  and a Patrolman Pro 2 (30 to 50 mhz).  State Patrol here used to be on 42.040 and 42.420.  Hot "skip" used to be on 39.500 and 39.580 .  Still use it occasionally for Red Cross ERV's operating on 47.420 in disaster areas.

[mainehazmt]

My current "oldies" includes operational Patrolman Pro 1 (148 to 174) mhz.) and a Patrolman Pro 2 (30 to 50 mhz). State Patrol here used to be on 42.040 and 42.420. Hot "skip" used to be on 39.500 and 39.580 . Still use it occasionally for Red Cross ERV's operating on 47.420 in disaster areas.

For many years we in the volunteer fire depts up here in northern Maine used 33.9 When skip was bad it would never shut up! Even one night had tones go off but was for a dept in another state. Still have a few of the transceivers around. Might have to dig one out and see if I can change the freq up a bit and play..experiment rather

[mcallahan]

Someone on the radioreference.com forums was kind enough to send some replacement bulbs for my Realistic Patrolman the other day. I swapped out the bad bulbs last night and the radio now has a permanent home on my desk:

 

[PastorGary]

While the Kenwood TKR820 is not antique, it is getting on in years.  Had one in the 90's on 462.575/467.575  at 185 feet using a 10 db omni.  Solid 42 miles with an 18 watt output.  Still wish that I had it and the programmer to change the chipset.  Anyone still using one of these?

Image supplied by Ebay...

http://img0031.psstatic.com/111563782_kenwood-tkr-820-uhf-repeater-ebay.jpg

[mcallahan]

A Radio Shack Pro-2021 I refurbished recently to use on my desk at work:

 

 

More info on my blog post.

[PastorGary]

Regency XL2000 UHF Part 90 mobiles - company I was with had a bunch of these on a Part 90 repeater for many years.

[n4gix]

I sold well over 800 UHF versions of them down in deep southeast Texas when I owned the GE Service Station in Kingsville. I added a DTMF microphone and a DTMF decoder and horn relay to them in order to create a "poor man's mobile phone". All incoming calls were answered 24/7 by a live operator. The operator would then dial the 4 digit code for the called party.

 

The user would take the mic off the hook to put the transceiver in "monitor mode" to make sure it wasn't in use, press * to get a dial tone, then key in the number they wished to call. Sending a # would then end the call and release the repeater.

 

Customers could buy their equipment and have our shop install it, then pay a modest $50/month for service. Alternatively they could lease the equipment for $100/month. The primary repeater was located just south of Kingsville at the top of a 680' guyed tower, and it provided sixty mile radius coverage easily. Over the years I added three additional repeaters to pretty much cover the eastern Rio Grande Valley area.

 

I really liked those little transceivers!

 

Eventually I partnered with a company in Corpus Christi and the King Ranch. We installed five channel 800 MHz EF Johnson trunking systems in six locations to provide much wider dispatch and mobile phone service. EF Johnson engineered a mobile unit for us that would auto-switch to use cellular service in those very few areas of coverage

[Kugellager]

Here is my museum: Hammarlund SP-600 JX-37, Rycom R1307A/GR, Setchell Carlson BC-1206. The Rycom and Setchell Carlson are LW receivers where the Rycom goes from 10kHz to about 900 kHz. The SC is for air beacons/NDB. The Hammarlund is my baby and works very well. It is my main MW DX rig and I have received DX from all over N America and Cuba.

John
];’)

[WRYZ926]

I still have my Sears Walkie Talkies from when I was a kid. And they still work. They were horrible back then and are still horrible. range is only about 50 feet 

[SteveShannon]

Just now, WRYZ926 said:

I still have my Sears Walkie Talkies from when I was a kid. And they still work. They were horrible back then and are still horrible. range is only about 50 feet 

Yeah, I’ve got some Radio Shack walkie talkies that are about 45 years old. So I was delighted to see how well GMRS worked 18 years ago when I bought some Motorola Talkabouts. 

[WRYZ926]

I took those walkie talkies to one of our club meetings just to mess with everyone. They all got a kick out of seeing them and knowing that they still work.

[WRQC527]

I just gave away a pair of these Radio Shack Space Patrol walkie talkies (circa 1978) to a thrift shop. I found them in one of my father-in-law's boxes-o-stuff. They worked, but my testing only involved from one end of the house to the other. Predictably, they struggled. 

 

[PACNWComms]

What sits at my desk at work.....helps me keep tabs on the analog gear. Have several more Realistic/Radio Shack/GRE receivers around as well. Very useful for FRS/GMRS monitoring. 

[PACNWComms]

 

However, my tastes also go the way of Kugellager above, I have a lot of Hallicrafters receivers as well. Most recent acquisition this past week. SX-24 with speaker. Needs to be cleaned up, but is fully functional. The "No!" on the speaker was next to a note card stating that you had to buy the radio before powering it on (I discretely plugged it in, with the volume to minimum and turned it on as the speaker was not connected - wanted to see if all the tubes worked at least).