I am looking for advice about railroad radios/scanners as I am interested in purchasing one to accompany me on a long car trip this summer. Are there particular makes and models that are generally regarded as good choices for the average railfan? Digital versus analog? I visited the RailCom website but found the wide variety of equipment and detailed descriptions a bit too much to comprehend and compare. I am hoping that there are others out there who can make a recommendation based upon their good experiences?
We’ve had several discussions over the years about scanners - a quick search on “scanners” didn’t come up with any of them right away, but I didn’t dig to deep.
So -
Pretty much any pocket scanner out there will serve your purposes. Railroads generally operate at 160-161 MHz, in the middle of the VHF-High band. If you’re buying a mobile scanner, try to stay away from the self-programming models. They’re a pain to program for exactly what you actually want to listen to.
EOT’s run in the 400 MHZ’s, meaning that if you want to listen for them, you’ll need a multi-band scanner (most are these days). Listening for them can be handy in areas where there isn’t much voice traffic, but all you’ll hear is digital noises, and only at a fairly close range.
One thing that often appears as a suggestion is to program all of the almost 100 AAR channels into the scanner, unless you have good information on what the railroads will be using wherever you may be travelling. The list of AAR channels has actually doubled, but I don’t know that anyone is using the new channels yet. I could be wrong.
Probably just as important as the scanner is a decent mag mount antenna for your vehicle. You’ll find them advertised in the RR magazines, or you can visit your local communications dealer and have them put one together for you. Be sure you have an appropriate connector f
Digital is coming, because it is an FCC requirement. Police, Fire, EMS is already digital. Actually, I am surprised that RR is not already all digital. It is required to make more band space available for our ever increasing need to communicate everything instantly.
The downside of the digital radio for you is that it is so easy to encrypt, that almost all traffic will be encrypted, and devices not specifically addressed by the signal will ignore the signals. That part at least is under your control, but all you will receive is dots and not-dots.
There have been rumors of an upcoming mandate to narrow bandwidth even more, but at this point they are only rumors, to my knowledge. But you’re right, digital is coming. The next narrowbanding will be too narrow for analog, so will have to be digital.
Any radio in the affected bands that’s been built in the past 10 years is narrowband capable (current standard). But radios capable of the next split, and of going digital, are relatively recent. I would opine that the move to digital will be in line with replacement cycles on the equipment, probably 7-10 years.
You are right about the encryption. I’ve worked with it, and within the system, you can’t tell that a transmission is encrypted unless you see the encryption indicator on the radio.
An issue with going digital, from the scanner enthusiasts standpoint, will be which digital technology the railroads embrace. Current thought has NXDN being the choice, while most public service agencies are going P25. P25 is an open standard. NXDN is proprietary, and consumer access will depend on whether the owning companies allow the scanner manufacturers to use it, if the scanner manufacturers are even interested in building an NXDN-capable scanner.
Public safety is going digital when they can afford it. The usual course is to build a trunked radio system, but that’s an expensive undertaking.&
Stark County went digital several years ago. Portable Radios used for paging and communication used to cost in the $2000 price range. Now they are in the $10-15,000 price range. We had federal dollars to help us, but I do not know why we were able to get them and you are not. Maybe it is our rural locations. It was part of the 911 monies, and maybe we had nothing better to use them for.
Consider something like the TYT TH-UVF-1 transceiver. It is really a two band ham radio but can easily be used as a scanner for both VHF voice and UHF EOT listening. Plus, once you get hooked on ham radio, you can transmit with this radio as well. For $110 you can’t beat it for the money. Any magnetic mount antenna with an SMA connector is compatible with the TYT. No need to spend any money on a commercial antenna. Gigaparts has an MFJ-1724 mag mount for $25. You should be able to get one locally at Radio Shack. Give 'em a call. If you have a local ham store, they will have dual band antennas that are perfectly good for scanning.
Yes, be sure to check the states you’re going to travel through. Some states (like my state of Minnesota) require getting a permit to use a scanner in your car. It’s easy enough to get, but if you don’t have it, it could result in a ticket or as noted potential confiscation. (The concern being in-car scanners could be used to monitor police / highway patrol radio in an attempt to avoid getting caught speeding.)
Did that transition from analog to digital have any substantive increase in reception? In other words, based on the same signal strength, would an analog receiver be dead while a digital receiver be wildly active?
Have no idea. The aim of the change from analog to digital was to decrease the bandwidth required for all the permissible channels. The change then made more bandwidth available for other uses.
My understanding is the the released bandwidth was used in the implementatin of PTC.
Most public safety installations of digital radio technologies have included substantial increases in the number of repeater sites. In many jurisdictions, the change involved going from VHF Low Band (30-50 MHz) and VHF High Band (150-172 MHz) to UHF (400 MHz or 800 MHz). The newer frequencies are far more line-of-sight than their predecessors, so need base stations (repeaters) closer together.
Narrowbanding has also had an effect. While using the same frequencies, the lesser deviation (how FM is measured) can reduce range somewhat.
One factor in play is the “digital cliff.” In analog systems, the intelligence (voice) will fade as the signal fades, meaning that one can often discern what the message is even under crappy conditions. OTOH, with digital, you’ll go from near 100% intelligibility to zip when you reach the extent of the system’s range.