SCANNERS INTRIGUING DIVERSION

Carol Miller might sleep at night, but her scanner gets no rest.

"When I'm in the house, the scanner is on," said Miller of Cape Girardeau. "It's always on, even through the night."

"I'm kind of a scanner nut, I guess. I love it."

Miller, head cashier in the city of Cape Girardeau's finance department, said she has listened to a scanner probably eight or nine years. Personally, she said, she wouldn't like it if Cape Girardeau police began scrambling their transmissions.

But still considering what she read about a Cape Girardeau businessman who used a police scanner while committing a string of burglaries she said she would understand the police wanting the capability.

Cape Girardeau police say they are researching the possibility of scrambling their transmissions. The interest comes in the aftermath of an admission last month by Roger Ashby that he burglarized 56 Cape Girardeau businesses and three at Jackson.

At all times, police said, Ashby carried a portable scanner. He used an earplug with the scanner while burglarizing a business, permitting him to know if police were busy or if they had received a report of the break-in, police said.

Miller said she listens to a programmable scanner because she likes to keep up with what's going on. The police transmissions are the most interesting to her, though she also listens to fire department and ambulance talk.

"I'd always tell my kids, `Now, I'll be listening to the scanner. You go out driving, I'll know if you get a ticket.'"

It has happened. The mother of four, Miller said she heard on the scanner both times when her two youngest children, then 16 or 17, got traffic tickets. The children, a boy and a girl who are twins, are now 21 years of age.

Her interest in scanners was piqued, she said, when she started working for the city 15 years ago as payroll clerk. Part of her job was to transport the daily deposits to the bank each day, accompanied by a police officer.

When they would ride to the bank, she said, the officer would have the car's radio on. On top of that, she personally got to know all the police officers, Miller said.

"I just found it fascinating for some reason, I guess because I knew most of (the officers) and Cape's a small town.

"If you tell me the officer's name, I can usually tell you his badge number. The code alphabet when they run a license plate, I can tell you what every letter means."

Miller also has another reason to be interested in police business. Her sister, Pat, is married to Howard "Butch" Boyd, the city's police chief.

Another city resident who likes to listen to scanners is Bill O'Kelly. Mostly, he said, he does it just to pass the time.

O'Kelly is owner of B&B Flea Market, 717 Independence. He said he's owned scanners since "probably when the first Bearcat was made" back in the 1960s.

Currently, O'Kelly said, he has three scanners: two programmable and one that operates by crystals. O'Kelly said he listens to his scanners about 60 percent of the time, but sometimes goes two or three months without turning one on.

He can scan thousands of frequencies in 18 seconds, picking up "anything in the air," from airplane transmissions to wireless phones.

O'Kelly said he thinks a lot of people who listen to scanners notify police when they see someone they have heard police are looking for.

"I think it helps them tremendously. I don't think they need to get bent out of shape because of this one incident (with Ashby)," he said.

If police do decide to scramble their transmissions, he said, it won't bother him because he's got a descrambler. Anyone else who wants to listen to the transmissions is going to find a way to unscramble them, too, he said.

"If someone's going to listen, they're going to listen whether it be the good guys or the bad guys."