my family had a little portable TV (GE 7-7150B, link below) that we'd usually only use down in the basement during severe weather.

one day I learned that you could tune in all sorts of non-TV frequencies. In particular, you could tune into any phone calls my neighbors were making on their wireless phones.

i loved that little tv and used it up until the conversion to digital OTA tranmissions.

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4qYPLd8owc

I had a black and white solid state Sony TV in my bedroom when I was growing up.

Aside from dialing into late night TV programmes my parents prohibited, there were two buttons that switched between VHF and UHF.

Toggling the UHF button allowed me to tune into police radio.

Being able to capture this via that TV felt close to magic, and I think probably went a long way to forming my associations between technology, mystery and discovery.

An article in TV Guide back in the 70s said you could tune in to tornados too. You'd dial it down below channel 2 (IIRC) and you could pick up EM static generated by a tornado within range.