Goodbye Bergenscanner

Moving to Cape May has been quite an adjustment after 38+ years of living in Woodcliff Lake.  Even though I have adjusted well, made new friends, become a "local" I still every now and then think about what's happening up north. Even though getting around on my scooter is considerably easier, I still long for the drives to Fusco's for a root beer and chips or into Park Ridge to Park Pizza for a slice of pizza. Though now it's Westside Market in West Cape May and down to Jojo's or Mario's Pizza to satisfy my  craving. It's time I leave my final permanent connection behind, Bergenscanner.com. I listed on RadioReference that I wanted someone either However before I leave I want to take a trip[ down memory lane

Listening to police scanners has given  me many many hours of pleasure. My first police scanner was a 10-channel Bearcat scanner I bought from Service Merchandise and I have been hooked ever since!
When I first got the scanner I bought the big Bearcat frequency guide and thought every town had their own frequency. The guide actually listed SPEN 1, a statewide frequency, as just being used for Hillsdale\. I also mislabeled fire frequencies for ambulance frequencies and vice versa. It took me a while to figure out that towns share the same frequencies. I bought a copy of Police Call from Radio Shack, I started to realize how radio systems work.

/ When I first got on the Internet there were different websites for New Jersey, but most focused on New York City. I decided people in Bergen County needed a better resource. Web design piqued my curiosity and  I searched Yahoo, days before Google took over everything, and found a website called Tripod where you could easily build a website using a pretty decent web editing. console without having to know HTML. I started tinkering, putting my frequency lists from my scanner and some other information.  Soon I had a friend convince me  to list every town in Bergen County. He was also the first to put everything into neatly formed tables. Remember  I was learning HTML coding on the fly.

As the site grew over the years I continue to add not just emergency frequencies, but frequencies for the local airports and other information. Through friends I learned about "PL Tones". The site was growing and I knew down the road it would need  to move off the free services of Tripod because after all the free sites used pop-up banners which got annoying really quick.  People offered to partner up with me to over to a different server. However I didn't want to lose control over the website I built After some resistance I decided to partner up with a web designer from Dumont who worked for a web hosting service. He assured me the site would remain under my control, he just handle the backend stuff, like getting the domain registered and provide free server space. Bergenscanner.com was born the summer of 2000. It was my first mistake that almost shutdown the site for good. Long story short he hosted the site on a business server, the business went under and he disappeared. I didn't have access to the information and lost the domain to a company in Louisiana of all places. After some persuasive \sweet talk I managed to gfet the domain back into my hands. As a side note after the whole debacle I immediately registered my own name "justinmattes.com" just save myself from headaches down the line. The status quo has been maintained for almost thirteen years.

Original Bergenscanner.com

2004 move to "Nocserve"

From about the time my youngest brother finished college my parents talked about moving out of Bergen County. They started visiting places like North Carolina and Lewes, Delaware, but decided they wanted to be closer to the rest of the family. I also for obvious reasons wanted to stay in New Jersey. They started visiting Cape May where friends had a house in 2012, right around this time.  They finally brought me down to check it out/. I remember the West Cape May Christmas Parade going on. Without making this post longer, they bought a house in 2015, rebuilt it in less than two years and sold my childhood home in 2016. I had wrapped up all  loose ends except one, Bergenscanner was still going. The domain was  about to expire and I just sold it.

Incidentally a friend of mine created a mailing list to exchange information on the fly. The activity dropped off during the last few years, like Bergenscanner. David decided it was time to let it go. In his closing response he named me personally so I offered this response. Best way to close a chapter in my life


Well since David named me personally I feel I need to compose some parting
comments. First I want to thank David for allowing me to participate in
such a wonderful forum. He said I encouraged him, but it was a
partnership. For those who have forgotten I was the webmaster of
Bergenscanner.com. David and I "met" while the website was still hosted on
a free website host called Tripod. We lived a few towns apart and began
exchanging e-mails with information. Over the course of time we forged a
friendship. Soon after David created NNJ-Scan, he got his ham radio ticket
and joined the Ramsey OEM. He introduced me to wonderful people like Mike
Adams, WA2MWT,SK and Joyce Brimingham, KA2ANF. Soon after David encouraged
me to get my ticket even though he knew I have CP which includes speech
difficulties. Little did I know what door David led me through. Since then
I have held memberships in some of the best radio clubs in Bergen County.
That was close to twenty years ago and I'm sorry while David and I haven't
completely lost touch, our daily emails have turned into passing
"Hellos", and in the recent years, just an acknowledgement we're still
kicking .
I have since moved down to Cape May, NJ and can no longer maintain
Bergenscanner. I have decided to close up shop. Twenty-four years is a
long run folks and now I need to move on. I want to thank David for
starting nnj-scan and letting this then "high school kid" to play with the
big folks best of luck David in the future
-- 

Justin Mattes-KC2GIK
http://www.bergenscanner.com