Just for the heck of it just after doing a few modifacations to my Scanner Railcom Antenna on my pickup. I was Montoring my Scanner and all of the conversations from the UP & the BNSF from here in Blair. We just had a cold go through last nigh so Radio signals are just perfect right now. Anyway!
The BNSF that heard that was coming over my scanner was SUPER CLEAR.
The Frequency 161.100 is still in use.A Road Channel of all things. From what I hear,it is used somewhere East of Creston,Iowa. Can someone Please conferm this. Because 161.415 is used West of Creston to Lincoln! And Omaha. I found out that the best to to hear real good Radio signal is right after a cold fron goes through,I have no idea why this happends,it just does.
Allan.
Hmmm… frequencies in the 100 MHz range are pretty much Line-Of-Sight, which means the transmitter and receiver can’t have many obstacles between them. Even humidity will degrade signals in that range, which explains why reception is better after a cold front goes through. And Creston sits up pretty high in Iowa, Elev. 1314 feet, which will overcome some of loss due to curvature of the earth.
161.100 and 161.415 are familiar to me in northwestern IL.161.100 is the line from Savanna and northward on the Aurora sub.161.415 is from Savanna to Galesburg on the Bakersfield sub.
Thanks guys. I had my Scanner out just this evening say around 3pm and the Radio signal arn’t that good. So I guess the best time to monitor is early in the day and later in the day when all the sky starts to calm down.
Allan.
May I impose on you guys, since you obviously know what you’re talking about–
My new Radio Shack scanner ($80 plus S&H) is a disappointment. It 's supposed to have all the frequencies from around 100 to the 800’s. I guess in theory it DOES, but I can’t get to them! When I try to hit the RR 160 MHz, the radio “forwards” from about 157 to the 180s. Why on earth, since it’s *** difficult to program everything one wants into a bank? My friend says it’s that RR programming is not key for most scanner users (unlike, say, emergency units or even NASCAR).
If I laid out more money, could I get a scanner that goes through the whole gamut of what it covers, including 158 to 180s and on to 800’s (without cellular, of course.) [:(]
Smalling,
If you are talking about the Rat Shack Pro 83 scanner, I have the same unit. I programmed in all 99 AAR frequencies and it works just fine. It’s a tedious process to do it by hand. Re-read your manual and try again. I had it along on a recent steam excursion from Mpls to Duluth, MN and it worked very well. The close capture worked great to listen to the crew in the engine.
There is a cable available and some software to program it via your PC if you are into that.
Bob in Minnesota
Ya but think of it this way. Once you get it all Frequencys Programed in your Scanner,You won’t ever have to worry ever again. Allan.
Sounds like you’re trying to use the auto band search that some radios have. They might not have included RR in the firmware, so it just does that whole big chunk instead. Like mentioned, you should put what freqs you want into mems. If you don’t know what’s being used in your area, you should still be able to put in a search that covers the RR band… I don’t have that radio, but typically it would be something like hitting ‘search’, then hit ‘hold’. Put in 160.200 then hit ‘limit’, then put in 161.600 and hit ‘limit’. Now hit ‘search’. If you want to put all the RR freqs into memories, I have them all listed on the RR freqs page of my site.
Dave
-DPD Productions - Featuring the NEW TrainTenna LP Gain RR Scanner Antenna-
http://eje.railfan.net/dpdp/
There’s a Yahoo group for the Pro-83 - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PRO-83/
They have the load83 freeware program that works with the Radio Shack cable and a Windows PC to load frequencies into the scanner. I used it to load mine, I also created a file with all the RR frequencies that works with the load83 program. If you need it let me know and I will post it where you can download.
Mark Gosdin