The Reuse Center used to be a warehouse full of reclaimed castoffs, a mish-mosh of home improvement items, old golf clubs, unloved books and music, and the very rare bit of electronics. Everything was priced to move, and we're sad that it's gone, having closed due to the current peculiar situation.
The rare bit of electronics I scored one weekend at this place is a Realistic Pro-34 scanner. This is a handheld device with 200 scanner channels in 10 banks, which was a $329.95 product at Radio Shack in the late 1980s. I found it for $2, and managed to source a compatible power supply for it for another $15 from T-Power (via Amazon).
Back in its day, lots of people did mods to the Pro-34 to add or cut a diode that affects coverage of certain prohibited bands. One such modification is accompanied by this direction upon completion:
"LASTLY, Now that you have made the mods, you can use the warranty card to light the Bar-B-Q Grill with."
The March 1989 edition of Popular Communications ("Pop Com") has a review of this scanner, and instructions on modifications. Look starting on page 25.
I have most of the frequencies you can see from the Washtenaw County piece of the W8SRC repeater guide programmed in, plus a few simplex channels. With the scanner turned on most of the time, I hear a few more things that I would if I only tuned in the radio when I was actively transmitting. Mostly though the local traffic is scheduled nets in the evenings, automated repeater announcements of the time of day on the hour or thereabouts, and every once in a while someone announcing when they are going mobile.
More details about the Realistic Pro-34 scanner on Rig Reference including a full user manual.
