My younger Buff years

[fdhistorian]

Didn't the sparks call it "the lot"?  (From what I remember in the 60s anyway it was a very central location to respond from)

Wasn't it also known as '727' for the fire box at that location?

The Hartford Dunkin Donuts was '623'  The other great location for the buffs was '252'

 

[grumpy grizzly]

Boston box 727, Massachusetts Ave @ Southhampton Street. ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

 

[nfd2004]

I didn't know that the Boston Sparks lot was referred to as "727" and Hartford was "623" and "252".

When I buffed Brooklyn, one of my favorite spots was a Micky Ds at Broadway and Koskiosko (spelling ?). Bushwick, Bed Sty, and Brownsville wasn't too tough to get there from that spot. Later when I buffed into the Queens area I would go to a Dunkin Donuts on Atlantic Ave near 87th St. The Van Wyck wasn't too far away. I think that Dunks was on the border of the 39/51 (?) Battalions.

  No GPS then. The Hagstrom Book Maps were the way to go. The Box Location book, a camera, a portable scanner, and a few quarters to call home from a pay phone, was all you needed.

 

[grumpy grizzly]

I had a hand-held VHF hi-lo that held 4 crystals. I know, us geriatic ones will have to explain to the pups what crystals were. I had BFD 33.74 and 153.89 and metro 154.22, the fourth one was kept empty, carried other crystals in a 35MM film container. Then Bearcat came out with the 210, completely programmable base scanner, and eventually hand-held programmable ones. You didn't need GPS, you were always going to the same areas, if not another buff would get you in the general area. In Boston you just needed to know the status of 3 units, R-1, R-2, and Car 13, SSU. A Rescue and car 13 went to all 45-xxxx boxes, working fire, different meaning than FDNY all companies working. A working BFD fire is equal to a FDNY 10-75. Those were some good days!!

 

[STAjo]

Crystals, Imagine That !  ;D

I forget da' Name of the Radio-Shack Brand Hand-held 'Scanner' I had ...

3 Crystals In: Bklyn FDNY, City-Wide, Bklyn E.M.S. ( Under NYC H&HC at da' Time, What Chatter !), NYPD 12 Div. (63,67,71,69 & 75 Pct.s - Now 2 Seperate
Divisions...). Extra 'Slot' was for NYPD 13 Div. (Bed-Stuy/E. NY ), or NYPD City-Wide, or FDNY Manh. or Queens ...

Favored Spots for 'Chasing' MVA's/Fires/ Shootings ... Nostrand & Linden, Utica & E.NY Ave, Remsen & Church, Rockaway Pkwy & Kings Hwy ( Mickey Ds !)

It's a 'Small Miracle' i did't end-up Dead or in Jail ... 

 

[nfd2004]

Crystals, Imagine That !  ;D

I forget da' Name of the Radio-Shack Brand Hand-held 'Scanner' I had ...

3 Crystals In: Bklyn FDNY, City-Wide, Bklyn E.M.S. ( Under NYC H&HC at da' Time, What Chatter !), NYPD 12 Div. (63,67,71,69 & 75 Pct.s - Now 2 Seperate
Divisions...). Extra 'Slot' was for NYPD 13 Div. (Bed-Stuy/E. NY ), or NYPD City-Wide, or FDNY Manh. or Queens ...

Favored Spots for 'Chasing' MVA's/Fires/ Shootings ... Nostrand & Linden, Utica & E.NY Ave, Remsen & Church, Rockaway Pkwy & Kings Hwy ( Mickey Ds !)

It's a 'Small Miracle' i did't end-up Dead or in Jail ... 

  I think the Radio shack Scanner brand was called "Realistic". I used to buy my crystals for the scanner at the Radio Shack Store on grand Concourse, south of Fordham Rd. They had a lot in stock for FDNY, NYPD, and NYC EMS.

 

[guitarman314]

  Crystal radios? Aw hell, there were many nights in the late 60's and early 70's where all I needed was the sense of smell and knowledge of the streets in the Bronx & Harlem. Stand in front of E83/L29 on a Summer night and look up to the sky. There was a time when that firehouse was #1 in "verbal alarms" from quarters.

 

[nfd2004]

  Crystal radios? Aw hell, there were many nights in the late 60's and early 70's where all I needed was the sense of smell and knowledge of the streets in the Bronx & Harlem. Stand in front of E83/L29 on a Summer night and look up to the sky. There was a time when that firehouse was #1 in "verbal alarms" from quarters.

G-Man, ain't that the truth. And to prove your point, I have a book sitting right next to me. I was reading it for about the 10th time on my recent flight back from Florida. The name of the book is "When the Bronx Burned", written by John Finucane, retired member of the now closed Engine Co 85. I know the book has been mentioned on here before. But as I look at the picture on the cover of that book, as you say, "look up to the sky". In that picture, you can clearly see THREE Separate Building Fires Going in what appears to be within just a few blocks of each other. Three totally separate columns of heavy black smoke rising. It sure isn't three separate car fires, that's for sure.

  Yes, G-man, myself and a few others on here can relate to exactly what you are talking about. Some others on here could tell us the same story about parts of Brooklyn or even the lower East Side of Manhattan. Taking up from one job and going to another was the "norm" rather than the "exception". I have no idea how those guys did it. And yet when the department instituted that interchange program for some of those busier companies to maybe get a well deserved break, as I understand it, most didn't want to leave.

  They were the Greatest Generation of Firefighters and apparently loved what they did. The record books have NOT been broken. Their record still stands, and it probably always will.

 

[*******]

Read somewhere that in 1970 the Soundview section of the Bronx had 980 or so residential and commercial buildings, in 1980 there were only 48 left standing.  How and why would the city leaders let an entire neighborhood burn down. They never would have let 900 buildings burn down in mdi-town Manhattan, would they have? Believe it was around 1976/77 that the Red Cap program was established, "locking the barn door after the horse got out" seems to fit. I remember driving home one morning after a busy night tour and on the radio station WINS they reported on a all-hands fire mid-town Manhattan. Thinking back I can never remember a radio or tv van being at any fire I was at 70-76 in the Bronx, nobody seemed to care. The buildings in the Bronx, 5 and 6 story tenements, huge H types would have stood another 100 years or more if they weren't destroyed by fire.

 

[1261Truckie]

Over in Brooklyn 280/132 were located a short distance from the Daily News' Brooklyn plant on Pacific Street (neighbors with 105 in their old house). There was hardly ever any mention of fire activity in the area unless in was a fatal fire, or had some political undertones. For the most part, the troops in the Ghettoes were largely ignored by the media. The exceptions were Jimmy Breslin and Pete Hamill.

 

[Disp51]

In the early 60's I started out with the Radio Shack "Patrolman" (on the right) for my first portable, which was tunable for both AM & VHF bands. Later, the Sonar Sentry (left) came along which also tuned AM radio, but had the capability of having three crystals for VHF channels as well. And for those who weren't around back then, the crystal receivers made all the difference in the world as you would get as clear a signal as possible, without the "drift" of the tunable models. Then Bearcat came out with the their programmable model, the 101. It had six band coverage, grouped from 30 to 512 MHz. But you couldn't just enter the desired frequency, the radio was programmed via positioning on or off 16 switches across the front of the radio. The accompanying manual included the frequency programming directory.  When fully programmed it would scan 16 frequencies, and suddenly my stockpile of crystals lost their value.

 

[memory master]

Then of course there was "Plectron" scanners.

 

[811]

Harron's products were the first radio for many of us.

And also don't forget the "converters" which I always found difficult to tune.

 

[68jk09]

Harron Labs was one of the original makers of a radio that allowed someone to listen in to FDNY action....still have my 1961 tube model as pictured above.

 

[nfd2004]

For those of us more senior members who remember these radios, "where have the years gone" ? Pretty scary to think that some of theses radio we used over 50 years ago.

  I had both of the radios that "Disp51" talks about. And the converter that "811" talks about, I think I had one of those too. It was a small square shaped box that you would put next to a transistor radio and tune that radio in to a specific area on the dial of the radio. It ran on a 9 volt battery and you could listen to one channel at time. I remember having mine held together next to the radio with rubber bands.

  Radio shack came out with a tunable radio that could hold one crystal on the low band and one crystal on the high band. I think it was called "The Pro ###". But you could only listen to one channel or the other. Then you had the option of tuning in other channels. In Bridgeport, Ct., I would pick up the FDNY and the Suffolk County Police Department.

  My father, who was a Bridgeport Firefighter, would listen to the FDNY and he was totally impressed how the Progress reports were given. Nobody else that we knew of did that kind of thing at the time. Although, a little different subject from the older radios we listened to, for the Retired Members of the FDNY, "you guys were way ahead of the times". It was long before some "National Incident Command System" was ever thought of.

 

[memory master]

I have a "Monitor Radio" from the old Lafayette radio store in Queens, Liberty Ave. & Merrick Blvd., to be precise. Anyway, naturally it's a "tubed" radio and I wondered if tubes or repairs were still available for these oldie but goodie radios?

 

[811]

Sonar on Wortman Avenue in Brooklyn was an early producer of crystal controlled desk radios, they also came out with some of the first hand-held portable crystal radios as illustrated by Disp 51; possibly before Radio Shack or Lafayette which was popular.

 

[68jk09]

The Sonar above was one that I had in my '68 Plymouth Fury 1.....it was mounted under the dash .....i had sprayed the entire radio flat black so it would be less visible from outside the vehicle.

 

[68jk09]

More on radio history......this is a post of mine from another thread back in 2010..i still have every radio today & most still work...
Re:Thread.. "War Years Buffs"

? Reply #34 on: July 10, 2010, 01:05:04 AM ?


I have every radio i ever got ....starting with a Harron Labs Fire Pal late '50s (Harron Lab was actually Harron's house on 220 St in Bayside QNS...he did all the manufacturing himself in his basement) up to a Uniden Bearcat BC560XLT programable.....about 15 different models in between mostly crystal & mostly still working .........in the early sixties my friend had a Harron Labs Fire Pal for his car.....the one in a perforated metal box rather than the table model in maroon plastic...he had it in his '49 plymouth & it was set up for six volts.......another friend borrowed it one time & put it in his '57 Pontiac but he did not realize it was a 12 volt system.......boy did that radio light up as it fried.......i have an original Sonar FR 105  6 channel manual crystal controlled as shown in some ones previous post......i also have one of Sonars first scanning models as well as an original Lafayette crystal controlled manual car only unit........a real simple & dependable 2 channel crystal non scanning unit about the size of a pack of cigarettes i have is a Radio Shack model.......& several other models ..............someone mentioned stuart electronics in QUEENS .....he is still there & has been there forever but if you are dealing with him you better know your shit or he will sell you what HE wants.....when i got out of the USMC Sonar had started making their first scanners ...i went to stuart to buy one & he said "you don't want a scanner in NYC its too busy....buy one of the manual FR105s"  so i did.......i found out later he was trying to unload his manual units since scanners were taking over.......lesson learned.

 

[nfd2004]

FDNY Firefighter Tom Ziegler, retired Ladder Co 17-2, Eng 94/Lad 48, tells a few stories. The language is a little rough in here. Nothing we haven't heard before but it does get pretty heavy. If there's kids around, I would not recommend playing these videos.

  www.youtube.com/watch?v=KV1E3kz-pSg

  www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMMhefCTIuM