Friday October 12 2:17 PM ET

Sales of Scanners, Radios Increase

By JAMES HANNAH, Associated Press Writer

CENTERVILLE, Ohio (AP) - Alarmed by the terror attacks, Brad Smith has a new living room fixture near his TV set and aquarium: a police scanner.

``I do think we'll have more terrorist attacks. And I'll be the first to know where it is. I'll hear it on that scanner before the TV and radio stations come on,'' he said.

The day of the Sept. 11 attacks, amateur radio operators were able to pick up transmissions among New York police, fire officials and dispatchers and listen in as the disaster unfolded.

Smith, 37, said early word from his scanner might enable him to evacuate or otherwise react quickly to word of a gas attack or terrorist bombing nearby.

Around the country, sales recently have increased of both scanners and short-wave radios.

The Radio Shack chain, based in Fort Worth, Texas, has reported an increase in sales, along with such dealers as Scanner World USA, a mail-order business based in Albany, N.Y., and Uniden America Corp. of Fort Worth. Some places are reporting that sales are up 10 percent to 30 percent compared with the same period last year.

Norm Schrein, president of the Bearcat Radio Club in Dayton, said he went to a trade show in Peoria, Ill., four days after the attack and was all but cleaned out.

``They were buying the scanners and not the cheap ones. The high-end ones that you can listen to military aircraft and all the other wide coverage,'' he said. ``They think it's necessary rather than being interesting.''

The lure of shortwave radios, which can cost up to $5,000, is that they allow for listening to broadcasts from around the world, including airline, shipping and military communications, said Larry Van Horn of Monitoring Times magazine. Broadcasts in foreign nations can also be tuned in.

``You're going to hear things that other people just don't hear,'' Van Horn said. ``You're going to hear it from the countries themselves - Afghanistan (http://rd.yahoo.com/DailyNews/manual/*http://search.news.yahoo.com/search/news?p=%22Afghanistan%22&c=&n=20&yn=c&c=news&cs=nwnews - http://rd.yahoo.com/DailyNews/manual/*http://search.yahoo.com/bin/search?p=Afghanistanweb sites), Iran, Iraq - and get their point of view.''

Bill Gayton, a psychology professor at Southern Maine University, likened some scanner buyers to people who built bomb shelters during the Cold War in the 1950s and '60s.

``People's lives have really been shaken,'' he said. ``Security is a very basic human need, and this is probably the first time it's been threatened to this extent.''

If anyone is interesting in purchasing a receiver, I'd be happy to make some recommendations.

Dr. Mark Levine

licensed ham op 29 years