Waco History Podcast

Before television and computers monopolized our free time, chasing police calls was a popular hobby. People needed only a radio, the knowhow to tinker with it, and a car. Charles Armstrong, a lifelong radio enthusiast and Waco resident, explains how he and wife Ruth had access to police dispatches through the 1940s, 50s, and 60s: "They was on AM, but they were up high on the band. On your car radio or house radio, you could turn it far as you go plumb up to the end of the band. You could take you a screwdriver and go in the back, and you could change the frequency. You could raise it up a little bit by using what's called an antenna tuner, and you could reach the police department. You could hear them on there dispatching. So we could listen to them, and if it was anywhere close, we'd get in the car and go. "And then it didn't last very long. I guess people got to bothering the police department and maybe too many people following them, so they went to FM, frequency modulation. I run up on a ad in one of the