Pretty funny as tax time approaches.
I found the frequency codes tucked away in a drawer for my scanner I used to keep in my car. Have no idea how much grief this saved me and a lot of other guys on Mulholland Drive.
Late eighties the cops switched to dual side bands and then went encrypted on the tac frequencies. Made scanners useless.
Considering the time we were pretty high tech savvy. I am sure the cops wondered when they had someone boxed in where they disappeared to? It must have drove them nuts.
In the early eighties the cops got smarter, They would do drive bys at Grandstands and take down license plates to see who they were registered to. A lot of guys got popped that way. If they knew you were a regular and knew where you lived they knew which way you would leave.
I used to fill up at the 76 Stations on Coldwater/ Ventura and Vineland/ Ventura. I got to know the attendants pretty well and many times the cops would be in the parking lot late at night just watching cars. If you went up the hill they went too minute or two behind you.
How many times did we see our friends pulled over in front of Harvard School getting an invitation to make a donation or an equipment inspection?
A good friend of mine Eric Odnert who passed away in 1988 was one of the few Cafe racers on the Hill. He had a Ducati Mike Hailwood Special (Red, White and Green) and a stable of RD400's. He would just get nuts up there. If the cops eyed him he would just go faster and disappear. Nothing like the sound of Desmodromic valves and open exhaust on Mulholland to get your blood pumping.
The cops got smart one night, they got his license plate number when he was hanging out at Grandstands. The cops knew they couldnt catch him up there. Next time Eric ran from them they were waiting for him at his house when he came home. He would call me up at 300am to tell me the cops just visited. That happened 4 times. They never gave him a ticket because he would demand they prove it was him "did you see my face"? Of course not because he always wore a full face.