Who is old enough to remember these? In the pre-scanner, pre-Minitor pager era (late 1950s into the 70s & 80s), this was the prevalent tone-activated low band receiver for alerting volunteer firefighters.

Company-specific tones would activate an alarm on the device, alerting the member to a call. It could also be left “open” to monitor all traffic on the frequency.

This one is on display in the AAFD historical display. These were not as widely used in the Mars and Valencia companies, as the majority of calls came from the fire phone systems. It wasn’t until the mid-80s that most calls came via the County Communications Center.