Police Call
Somewhere on my desk I have a frayed, faded and much abused copy of the 1993 edition of Police Call.
I learned today from LA Observed that Gene Hughes, publisher of the magazine, died recently at age 80.
Police Call was a collection of radio frequencies used by police, fire and other government agencies. Hughes, a scanner junkie, put them together and made the gibberish understandable to the lay person.
As much as anything I have Hughes (real name Gene Costin) to thank for my ability to tell the difference between real news and real noise.
Here's a bit from the LAO post:
Costin was 13 and living in a Los Angeles foster home in 1940 when he discovered that he could listen in on the LAPD's radios. The rest is history.
Here's a link to Wired's obit. The photo is from Wired also.
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| Frank Girardot, Metro Editor for the San Gabriel Valley Newspapers, brings you behind the yellow tape with takes on true crime, cold cases and more. This is also your forum to discuss crime, its impact on your neighborhood and how we cover it. Have any questions or tips? You can leave a comment here or e-mail Frank. |
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Brian Day is the crime reporter for the San Gabriel Valley Newspaper group. E-mail Brian. |
That's so cool! I've had a ham radio license since 1994 or so. I used to pick up the police band when I was a kid - is it still possible to do that, though? I'm so out of the loop with radio.
Thanks for letting us know about Gene's passing. I too have a stack of his directories, used to buy them at a little pawn/gun/radio shop on Las Tunas Dr., San Gabriel.
Past couple of years I been using ScanFan, available on-line.
Mike
The Los Angeles Fire Department posted a very nice tribute to Gene on their blog today, at http://lafd.blogspot.com/2008/08/lafd-friend-father-of-police-call-dies.html
Gene's "Police Call" books were probably the most important single factor in my going into police and fire dispatching 40 years ago this month.
Gene was a real gentlemen, and became a personal friend of mine over the past decade.