When I am near UP tracks I hear an occasional burst of DTMF tones on the road channel. Can someone explain what these tones are? I belive it’s either FRED talking to the head end unit, or a hubble talking to the CTC equiptment.
I would like to know what I am hearing. Can someone enlighten me???
Most likely its a train toneing in the dispatcher, the second tone will be
the remote base sending a confirming tone then in a few minutes the disp.
will come on the radio. jackflash
yep…thats exactly what it is… someone is “buzzing in” the dispatcher… they have nothing to do with EOTs or any other type of rail road equipment… it is strictly train to dispatcher radio communications…
csx engineer
Jackflash & CSXEngineer98,
Thanks for answering my question, But I think we are talking about different tones.
The most common place I hear this is on the UP line between Portola,Ca. and Winnemucca,Nv. There is very little talk on the road channel, yet these bursts happen every few minuets. They also seem to happen more often when traffic is heavy.
And always after a burst there is a repeat of the same burst from a different transmitter 1-2 seconds afterward. I can tell by the strength of the signal that they are not coming from the same place.
Thanks again guys.