Railfan Technology > Is there any use for old Radio Shack VHF crystal scanners?

I am doing some spring cleaning.
I have some old Radio Shack crystal controlled radio scanners from the 1970's and 80's.
Is there some niche market for them or should I just throw them away.  Not looking to make
any money off them. I just hate to throw something away that someone might have a use for.




 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/13/19 10:57 by Englewood.

what frequencies they on, will determine if they are useful to people
 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/13/19 11:06 by dan.

Remember when ?  You were planning a trip.
and scoured X2200S articles for what crystals you
had to buy ?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/13/19 14:58 by NKP715.

I bet some collector woluld.  I have some too.     



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/13/19 16:06 by mundo.

NKP715 Wrote:
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> Remember when ?  You were planning a trip.
> and scoured X2200S articles for what crystals you
> had to buy ?
I remember doing that too. But now I can't remember what I did with that scanner and the cyrstals...

I remember going to Radio Shack and ordering the crystals.  You had to pay for them in advance since not a lot of folks wanted a crystal for the Boston and Maine Road and Yard channels!  Then you had to wait weeks for them to come in.

I hope you find some collector, if I still had mine I would keep it for nostalgia!

don't the crystals need replacement occisionally?

If no serous collectors come forward, I can place with what I have.  Still have two crystal scanners, one being a table top..

dan Wrote:
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> don't the crystals need replacement occisionally?


Only if you break the crystals :-) They're quartz wafers.

John.

I have a couple old crystal equipped Motorola radios.  The only remaining crystal maker in the US that I am aware of is Bomar in Middlesex, NJ.  There is also West Crystal (now West Mobile Mounts) in Kelowna, BC.
http://bomarcrystal.com/crystals.html
http://www.westmobilemounts.com/aboutus.asp

For anyone that remembers (the good old days), International Crystal Manufacturing went out of business nearly 2 years ago.  I can remember buying "crystal cards" from Radio Shack (40+ years ago) and filling in the brand of radio (at that time, Regency), model (ACT-R10 H/L/U tri-band) and frequency desired (from Extra 2200 South before a trip), then sending them to ICM.  Generally in 2~4 weeks, your crystals would arrive.
http://www.arrl.org/news/international-crystal-manufacturing-going-out-of-business

Wow, am I that old?

daniel

 

The old RCA  4 channel crystal scanner was super until I left it on top of the car!

The latest in "Railfan Technology" mounted in my '72 Chevy Nova!!!

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Crystal scanners still work just fine for RR listening if you can get crystals for them.  We have had some 3 or 4 road channel frequency changes on the Shasta Route over the past 30 years, but the old scanners (including crystal versions) still pick up mainline RR traffic just fine, thank you.  Sometimes the crystal versions are less prone to interference and use less power since they are single frequency devices without digital processors. Some of those radios such as the Sears 4-channel version are also quite sensitive to weak signals which can be very helpful.

Does anyone remember the (I think it was Regency) scanner where you used an auminum "comb" where you had a book that told you what "teeth" to break off for each different frequency? I remember it as having good sensitivity and intermod rejection.

Dick Samuels

 

Don't remember that but for years I had a Bearcat 101, probably the first programmable scanner. You had to use a series of switches on the front flipping them up or down based on a code book but it worked quite nicely.