From: jet@nas.nasa.gov (J. Eric Townsend)
Date: Thu, 8 Jul 93 12:21:45 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: scanning (was Happens to `best' of them
Message-ID: <9307081921.AA28998@boxer.nas.nasa.gov>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Sameer Parekh writes:
 > 	Remember that some people think that becoming skilled at using
 > a non-Mac is tough.

Which is why I made the statement about MacScanner.

Access to this sort of technology should not be limited to ham freaks,
private eyes, and followers of the great Radio Shack.

I bought an ICOM R-1 because it does almost everything interesting to
the average person (FM & AM), scans a wide range of stuff, and is
relatively cheap and lightweight.  It's easy to use, modulo tiny
buttons.  It doesn't have all sorts of ham stuff (special SSB mode,
for example).

The R-1 is not 'MacScanner', but it's closer.  It's sort of like
having Windows on a PC.  Once I got it up and running, figured out a
few wierd things, and ignored the rest, I can use it quite easily. :-)

What would be way cool is a handheld scanner with buttons marked:
"Fire", "Emergency", "State Police", "Sheriff", "Police Jury",
"Municipal Police", "Cellular", "Cordless Phone", "FM Radio", "AM
Radio".  It would also be nice to have built in DTMF decoding, blah
blah blah.

And it would really crank up the desire to have crypto phones. :-)