Respected radio scanner hobbyist Gene Hughes passes away

Gene Hughes (aka Gene Costin), the radio monitoring expert who published the first "scanner-geek bible" Police Call some 40+ years ago, has died at 80 years of age. Photographer Steve Diet Goedde shot the portrait of this wireless master above for a 2005 profile in Wired News.

Kevin Poulsen, who wrote that profile, has a post up today on Wired.com about his passing.

[He] became a household word among geeks in the 1970s when he started cataloging the radio frequencies used by various police and fire departments and other agencies, giving hobbyists something to do with the first generation of programmable scanners then hitting the market.

Police Call Publisher Gene Hughes Dead at 80 (Wired.com Threat Level)

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

More at Boing Boing

Eurovision 2013: An American in London

The technology that links taxonomy and Star Trek

Bryan C

I’m sorry to hear that. Police Call was an indispensable resource for scanner users in the days before the web. For years I faithfully bought my new edition every year at Radio Shack. I’m also surprised to learn that his real last name was Costin; that’s also my last name, and it’s not that common.