ALL:
My old scanner has died and I plan to purchase a new one for railroad frequencies.
Does anyone have a favorite one to recommend and what about the AAR splitting frequencies? Also, I have read about trunking railroad radios, but I don’t think that will happen because all locomotives and base operations would need to be converted to the new system.
Ed Burns
Go big or go home.
Just kidding, but after a fashion, I’m not.
It’s usually a safe bet to buy the best scanner you can afford, then improve on the antenna (generally the weakest point). A lot depends on how you plan to use it. If you travel a lot and want to load all of the AAR channels, you’ll want something with at least 200 channels. If you want to listen to your local emergency services (fire, police), you’ll need something that will handle that as well (and that could be trunked).
Some scanners will allow the entry of NWS “SAME” addresses for weather alerts.
You may find some interesting discussion on this recent thread as well: http://cs.trains.com/trn/f/111/t/247679.aspx
As for the splitting of the frequencies, you can find them listed in numerous places on-line. Any current scanner can probably handle them. In general, they’re in between the current ~100 channels.
What I can’t tell you is how much they are getting used. I would imagine that you’re more likely to see them used in metropolitan areas with lots of railroad action. The Podunk Hollow Railroad probably doesn’t have a lot of frequency competition. Unless the FCC and AAR are handing out the new frequencies on principal.
I like my Uniden BC75XLT Bearcat with an external mag mount antenna. About $85 the antenna is about $20