Made a trip to Radio Shack and their scanners are now digital (vs analog) and are in the $400 - $500 range.
I have a couple of older analog types that have seen better days and am considering a new purchase.
Are the digital scanners worth the $$$? Exactly what does digital vs analog mean for listening to railroad performance.
These scanners are completely different than older scanners. The units are made by Uniden and look like a small rectangular box about 1 inch tall by 3" x 5" withGPS capability to lock in area frequencies. Wow.
If they are truly digital, they are for receiving digital signals. Digital communications are superior to analog. Some vendors misuse terms. Like those HD sunglasses I keep seeing advertised.
The Federal Communications Commission has mandated that railroads convert to digital narrow-band communications to free up bandwidth for other users. I believe some railroads are also using encryption as they install new systems, which will make Radio Shack and other consumer scanners useless for listening to RR communications…
Many public safety radio systems are going digital, both in simplex or simple repeated modes, or trunked.
Word is that the railroads may go digital, but the specifics are usually lacking.
Most digital scanners can probably handle the existing proprietary digital trunking (Motorola and Ericson - now Harris), as well as the P25 standard. That may or may not be the way the railroads go. I’m hearing that the railroads may use NXDN.
One system that is not scanner-friendly is Harris’ “Open Sky,” which uses TDMA. I doubt you’ll see that in scanners unless someone reverse-engineers it.
Digital does tend to be clearer, although a phenomenon known as the “digital cliff” can be a factor. With analog communications (such as the railroads now use), the signal tends to drop off gradually, meaning that you can often sort out the information in a transmission even if you’re doing so through static. With the digital cliff, you either have comms, or you don’t.
If you’re going to listen to traffic like your local emergency services, you’ll probably want to consider becoming digital capable. AFAIK, digital scanners can still handle analog comms, so it’s not an either/or proposition.
Analog means the audio is transmitted as variation in the Amplitude of the Radio signal (AM), or as a variation in the Frequency of the Radio signal (FM). To “detect” the audio, you need to strip out the RF leaving the audio portion.
Digital means the audio is converted to a digital stream of 1’s and 0’s where groups of them represent the instantaneous level of the audio signal. The transmitter sends these groups in packets of data with a header and trailer that can contain other information about the transmitter (which can include the call sign of the transmitter, the time of day, and/or other information of a text nature, or even another stream of audio data.)
The receiver converts that digital stream of digits back into the groups to drive the speaker to the level for each instant. That digital stream is transmitted as a variation in the frequency of Radio signal, but if you just strip out the RF you get a lot of screechy squeals from the speaker. So you have to have some sort of simpleton (or better) computer to handle the data. The packets of digital data are sent fast enough that the instantaneous values sent to the speaker are interpreted by the human ear as “audio”.
Presently, the RRs are not using digital so a Digital receiver is just money spent for no purpose, unless you also use the radio receiver for scanning the police and public service bands (ambulance, fire, etc.) that are using Digital.
“Someday” the RRs will be going digital and then the old radios will be pretty much useless except for listening to some other service that has not “gone modern”.
As for whether “digital” is “better” or not is of some controversy! In some ways it may be better, but as anyone that watches "broadcast Digital TV has probably noticed… Back when the TV was “analog” if an airplane flew over or the neighbor was tuning up his car, the picture an
Norm, you remind of when I was working for a living (now, I do as little as possible), and had as one of my responsibilities sending PC boards (and other items) out for repair. Everything returned to Stores for repair had a description of the problem–and, quite often, the maintenance tech would describe the problem with a PCB as “needs to have the smoke replaced.” Often, the problem with a vacuum pump was described simply “will not pump.”
I mentioned the current technologies in my first post - I’m not sure I’m up to a technical explanation down to the bits and bytes. The transmissions, though are pretty much one way - the radio receives and processes what is sent, and there is no error checking as you will find with ethernet and other wired network technologies. (BTW - I also have problems with my digital cable if there’s a lot of people on the “wire.”)
Suffice to say that most radio comms are short in duration, and are within the design range of the system in use. F’rinstance, my county is looking at a trunked radio system that will require some 15 repeater sites, vs the 4 transmitter/receiver sites currently in use… The short duration means that there’s less possibility of losing one of the few packets involved (the systems usually work at 9600 baud - akin to an early dial-up modem), and if the transmission is garbled, you’re not that far from being able to ask for a repeat.
Have you considered 2 meter band transceivers? You might find some that are analog, and you might be able to disable the transmitting function on some models.
I believe it was this essay - which ended with something like “Who was up there passing Seaboard signals ?” - that also included the description of the reception of an early walkie-talkie disappearing into a series of squawks and pops at a critical moment, resulting in the crash of a hard and loud coupling. During or after which, the conductor holding the offending device threw it in frustration against the side of one of the cars. When filling out the tag for the repair shop, he wrote simply: “Tore up.”
“Selected Railroad Reading: Hand signals - they predated radio, they continue”
by O’Connor, R. R., from Trains, March 1984, p. 28.
I just wanted to bring this thread back to the top. I too, am days if not hours away from placing an order for a replacement scanner myself.
The ads show the different makes and models i.e. Bearcat, Icom, etc. and models by each manufacturer, and list the features; analog, digital, trunking, etc., but does anyone here have recent experience with any of these, and how well do they work. The 2-metre transceiver idea seems interesting as well.
And teletypes used to run at something like 60 wpm (45.5 baud)…
Regarding scanner choices, you’ll find that some models are the same between brands. A few cosmetic changes and the Bearcat is now a Radio Shack. Another company that builds scanners is GRE - and many of their products get rebranded as well.
That said - look for what you want in a scanner. If all you’re going to do is listen to railroad traffic, you probably don’t need a $500+ digital scanner. If you’re going to listen to local emergency services and the like, you’ll need to research what technologies they are using, and see what you can discern about where they might be headed, particularly if they are still using older analog technologies.
You also need to consider your abilities for programming a scanner, and whether your scanner of choice will allow you to listen to what you want to listen to. I’d opine that the consumer-oriented automatic, GPS based scanners probably aren’t going to provide the railroad coverage you want (maybe they do - corrections welcome). It’s worth consideration.
My advice is to “go big, or go home.” Buy the best scanner you can afford that fits the criterion you decide is appropriate. Buy recent - a newly released scanner will likely be able to handle foreseeable technologies.
That has been my plan. I never did go in for listening to police or fire services, even before they were trunked. Your post did remind me of something I used to like listening to back in the Twentieth Century, the MOW service channels of our LRT. Especially during blizzards, and we had plenty of snow this past winter. As far as I can tell they still haven’t been trunked either.
Either today or tomorrow I am going to go over the info I have one more time and place an order. Thanks for confirming what I already expected.
Our man Tree has posted the global list of RR frequencies for Canada and the US several times. You could use the forum search feature to find those. With modern scanners it would be fairly easy to set the search parameters and let the scanner find them for you. But in the end, talking to other railfans, or checking local area railfan websites, publications, or clubs would help you zero in on the best frequencies to listen to in your area.
My setup is there is a scanner (Radio Shack Pro 4300) in my office and a couple of older (30 years old) barely hanging on by the electrical tape Radio Shack scanner in the garage which listen to when I go to the patio this time of year.
My office has all sorts of electrical interference and the reception is so-so. The garage scanners are old but have much better environment including decent antenna (specifically for rail use). I took the RS Pro 4300 to the garage/patio last night and the reception was outstanding. Much better than in my office or the older units.
So, if I can find a Pro 4300 or something similar, I am going with it. RS seems to only have the $500 units with GPS and digital and that doesnt seem applicable.