Anyone else enjoy monitoring radio chatter?

[MMLDelete]

As a kid in Gulfport, Mississippi, late at night I would listen to KAAY in Little Rock, Arkansas. On a tiny, scratchy transistor radio, under the covers so my dad wouldn’t hear, then come in and order me to get some sleep.

[steve-in-kville]

I was also in the fire/ems service for years, both volley and paid. When I was on call, I kept a radio under my pillow just to monitor what was going on in neighboring townships at night. My wife wasn't fond of it, obviously. I try to keep a portable with me wherever I travel. Just never know these days.

[Deggesty]

We had  a Stewart-Warner multiband receiver in our dining room, and from time time, my brother was a little oder than I and I would listen to the shortwave broadcasts from various countries. We knew no foreign language, but we did enjoy the music.

We also listented to the Lone Ranger three afternoons a week, eating mayonnaise sandwiches as we sat on the floor in front of the radio. Four years ago, a group of my grammar school and high school friends and I were eating lunch, and I mentioned our listening to the Lone Ranger, and a classmate who had lived next to us at the time remmebered something from about 74 years back--"I wanted to join the Lone Ranger Club, and you said I couldn't because I was  a girl!" (The things women remember) All I could say was, "I'm sorry."  We did hug each other before we left the gathering.

Not long after I started in the fourth grade, I came down with rheumatic fever, and spent the rest of the school year in bed, with an Atwater-Kent TRF (tuned radio frequency--quite different from a superheterodyne circuit; I tried building one, but was unable to get it tuned to receive signals) radio by the bed. New Year's Eve, I stayed awake until after midnight--and then tried to raise a Chicago station about one a.m. (we lived fifty miles south of Charlotte, N.C.--but was unable to find one.

When in high school, I did build a radio with a superhet circuit (using various surplus military components), put a headphone under my pillow, went to sleep listening to music from the Roosevelt Hotel in New Orleans, and woke up to a station fifty miles or so above Charlotte.

[Paul of Covington]

Ulrich

When I was a kid I had a great big vaccum tube radio in my room. Used to make a game out of trying to get far off radio stations late at night...

   That sounds like me.  Many local stations (New Orleans) signed off around midnight, which left a lot of clear air.  Farthest I got was San Francisco, but I also got a lot of stations up in the midwest.   I never was interested in ham radio, but I listened to them sometimes; I noticed that mostly their conversations were about their rigs.  One I remember talked about a receiver he designed and built himself with eight IF stages.

[Ulrich]

When I was a kid I had a great big vaccum tube radio in my room. Used to make a game out of trying to get far off radio stations late at night...furthest I ever got was some station in Oklahoma (I was located in Quebec). The ambience was great.. the dark room.. the glowing tubes.. the crackling voice and static.. messages and music meant for an audience far away from me.  But never had any use for scanners.. I hear other fans listening to them and for me at least it takes away from the experience.. I listen to enough chit chat all day long.. one reason I go trackside is the peace and quiet it affords me.. other than the trains themselves  of course. 

[tree68]

When Iwas a kid, we had a tunable monitor in the house - scanners weren't available yet.  It was always tuned to the police frequency - Dad was a reserve police officer.  

There was a mark on the dial for the fire frequency, but you had to make sure it got retuned to the police if you changed it.

I've had a scanner for years, and it's aways on.  Police and fire mainly, but I do have local RR frequencies.  On a good day I can hear the DS talking to the crews.

It's funny - I'll sleep right through a major fire elsewhere in the county, but hearing my own department's name on the air will wake me up.  Of course, my dog recognized our pager tones, so...

I also have a scanner in the truck, and railroad is definitely a player there.

I, too, am a ham (extra), albeit more recently, but I've been involved in public safety communications for years, including the installation of a 4,000 subscriber trunked system at a nearby military base.

[steve-in-kville]

I've always been a radio geek. Had a scanner since age 12 (back before encryption) and later got my amatuer license. In fact ham radio is what lead me to trains. I have all of NS's frequencies programmed in but rarely hear human voices. I don't monitor 24/7, either.

Anyone else listen to the rail channels?