I recently was given an old Monitoradio which appears to opperate on the FM band.. first time I've seen one of these.. it has a squelch knob on the front of the case... unsure if this could be used to pick up anything today.... what was the original use of these units?

:I recently was given an old Monitoradio which appears to opperate on the FM band.. first time I've seen one of these.. it has a squelch knob on the front of the case... unsure if this could be used to pick up anything today.... what was the original use of these units?

At one time, there was a thing called Conelrad (CONtrol of ELectromagnetic RADiation) Which is today known as the EBS. Stations in an area monitored a key station, and upon reciept of a phone call (from where, nobody ever found out) the key station cut off the carrier twice, and played a 1kHz tone, then announced a CONELRAD alert, at which time everybody shut off all transmitters, radio, televeison, taxicabs, trains, etc, etc., so the Russians couldn't use Automatic Direction Finders to locate American cities. My guess is that you have an FM monitor for CONELRAD, and you will have a terminal strip or connector on the back for external alarm, light bulb or bell. The squelch was to listen for the KHz tone after the carrier alarm went off. FM monitors were unusual, for FM wasn't really popular in my radio days, so this might be a late model, probably a well built radio.

Lewis

Sorry to have to discredit the "Cold War" theory - but your radio is simply a monitor built by Regency (a manual forerunner to modern scanners) that covered the 152-174 MGHZ range - which, at the time, included police, weather, industry, air, etc. You may still pick up some activity - but it won't be nearly as much as it used to be when your radio was made. I've run across a few of these radios at flea markets and swap meets - usually of little passing interest from collectors and sell for $30 or less...

:Sorry to have to discredit the "Cold War" theory - but your radio is simply a monitor built by Regency (a manual forerunner to modern scanners) that covered the 152-174 MGHZ range - which, at the time, included police, weather, industry, air, etc. You may still pick up some activity - but it won't be nearly as much as it used to be when your radio was made. I've run across a few of these radios at flea markets and swap meets - usually of little passing interest from collectors and sell for $30 or less...

You are probably right...but he said the FM band, and that started the old memory going off in some direction, if the wrong one.
Lewis

Lewis,
I kind of like the Conelrad story though - it adds a bit of mystery to what is otherwise a plain brown wrapper radio and conjures up memories of the Nuclear Threat of the 60's (back then, we actually knew who the enemy was and where to find him!!!) At least when asked about his Monitoradio, Dan can now say - "Someone once told me...."

:Lewis,
:I kind of like the Conelrad story though - it adds a bit of mystery to what is otherwise a plain brown wrapper radio and conjures up memories of the Nuclear Threat of the 60's (back then, we actually knew who the enemy was and where to find him!!!) At least when asked about his Monitoradio, Dan can now say - "Someone once told me...."

JGJ:

Also, in those days, all AM radios, which were almost all of the radios, had little triangels at 640 and 1240 KHz, indicating the Civil Defense frequencies frequencies to tune in case of an attack. Large public buildings had signs indicating the number of people who could seek shelter. The last radio station I worked for had been a key CONELRAD station, complete with fallout shelter, radiation meters and other stuff. The station could be converted from 580 to 640 Khz. in a few minutes, but the secret telephone was gone and the fallout shelter wasn't used anymore except for storage. The first radio station I worked for monitored 580, and logged the tests when our monitor went off, which still brings Monitoradio to mind.

Lewis