I just got a scanner as a Christmas present and was going through some frequency lists on the web to decide which ones to program into it. A couple of the sites identfy the uses of each frequency. Most are obvious, Yard, MOW, Hump, etc. However, a number of them are identified as “PBX” amd a couple as “RTC”. Can anyone tell me what these frequencies are used for. Thanks.
PBX is a sort of phone. The Pbx channel will give dial tone so a crew can get a land line and dial out. I’ve seen guys on helper locos dial out and order pizza. The company gets a little stizzed when they catch you on the PBX (Moraz) screwing around. I use it in the yard to call the tower on their phone instead of tying up the radio channel if I know that my conversation will be lengthy. I don’t know what RTC is, but I am curious.
RTC stands for Rail Traffic Controller, or dispatcher. This title is used mainly by the Canadian Rail Companies.
Thanks Charlie,
Ken
Thanks for the info. Now I don’t have to figure out how to cram 97 channels into one scanner.
Sure Ed, but I didn’t tell that much, or give any instrumental info. What I do know is if the double channels that we use on the BNSF have the same number to X-mit on as receive on ie: 59 59 those will be your regular channels and would be just called 59. If you run across say 29 68 that would most likely be a PBX channel. You probably won’t hear too much on these channels. Alot of guys just use their cell phones instead of dialing into the PBX. Hope this helps. Ken
Hi Ed,
This is Ed in Houston, PTRA.
Just to add to Kens note, PBX is a broadcast channel, so even though it acts like a phone, it is also broadcast, so others can hear you. We had a trainmaster who didnt know this, and called his wife, and was describing what he was going to do when he got home…
Well, needless to say a lot of crews here had a rather hilarious evening making jokes, he never lived it down.
Ed
Hey Ed in Houston, jackflash here, we had a
similar thing happen, guy got on the radio and
was talking to his girl friend, lucky it was
late at night, by the way those things can
be programed to blank the radio side of the
audio, so that only the person on the telephones
audio is broadcast, the only person that hears
the person with the radio is the person with
the telephone, Marine radio telephone has gone
to this, also, PBX might also show up as
“mobile tel” or “auto patch” same thing differnt
name