Imagine Christmas 1989 and you got this high end desktop air-band scanner from Radio-Shack for $179 ($455 in 2024 money). Wood grain, digital keypad, back-lit lcd display and 20, I say TWENTY memories!! Receives your airport ATIS in your kitchen 10mi away and has excellent selectivity and sensitivity. Now move 35 years later. $20 on eBay and 20 min cleaning gets you the same excitement and performance and you even remember programming :)

followup:

@WiredForFlight I had a portable Radio Shack scanner when I was in high-school and I could “program” this desktop one without cracking open the manual since I still remembered how to work it :) The thing even has squelch!! (my Garmin SL30 doesn’t have physical squelch knob!!) :)