I’ve been thinking of something that I would like for Christmas and I came up with the idea of a radio scanner. We’ve asked around a bit and have found out that they range in price from about $100 to a couple hundred dollars and e-bay is a good place to look for them. Could anybody give me a bit more information on scanners? Such as what kinds are the best and more detail on the prices. Yes, my mom knows about this, and she says it’s fine with her as long as the price isn’t too bad.
Try www.scannerworld.com or your local radio shack.
Hope this helps.
http://www.railroadradio.net/index.php
Good resource at the above page as well.
Golden rule of scanning = The Antenna is everything.
Doesn’t matter how expensive of a scanner you get, if the antenna isn’t any good, the scanner won’t be able to perform to it’s full ability.
Dear Willy2,
I got a Vertex VX-150 for Christmas last year. It works well, has more features than I can think of, and I like it. Of course, this is the only one I’ve ever had.
It can also help to buy a larger antenna to mount on your car. Also, once you get your scanner, Altamont Press timetables or a similar item are a necessity. Finally, I find it helpful to type up some blank Track Warrant forms, and record them when you are in an area operated with track warrants.
I hope I have helped.
Sincerely,
Daniel Parks
Willy2…If you move about in an area within a scanner’s range of railroads {several miles}, I’m sure you will get a bunch of enjoyment from a communications scanner…I have had 2 Radio Shack units, both 200 channel units, and for a communications scanner, I’d reccomend a 200 channel unit. It picks up many utility and public service broadcasts…{Police included}, and of course you want one that handles the 800 mhz frequencies and so on. They are not as expensive as they were at one time. My first one used 6-AA batteries and the one I presently have uses 4-AA’s. Believe the 6-bat. unit went longer on it’s batteries but that’s not too much of an issue. I have used both rechargeable and alkaline with success both ways…If you get one check your local codes on where they are legal…some areas {States, as well}, have laws preventing their use. Price in general: Several hundred dollars. Perhaps some are less than that now…Radio Shack is a good place to check them out and let them tell you about them…Make sure they cover the railroad freq.
I dont really reccommend ebay
I’ve found radio Shacks scanners to be nice, it’s what I use, a portable hand held one, and it works well for in the feild research. And I wouldn’t recommend e-bay either, I don’t know if I’d completely trust someone on something so breakable.
Noah
I prefer Uniden Bearcat scanners myself, I had their portable one with a Radio Shack scanner antenna, lately upgraded to a larger model for home/vehicle use. This one is programmable, and has police, fire, marine, weather, and amateur frequencies pre-programmed into it. I agree with another post, the antenna makes the setup work the best (or worst), so purchase a good quality antenna.
Randy Vos
I think an important point regarding eBay is that you HAVE to know the technology fairly well to avoid the major risks of being ‘skinned’. Until you’re familiar with scanners, their capabilities, and how you will use them, your risk of getting a dubious ‘bargain’ – or alternatively paying near list price (or even above what you’d pay new from a reputable source) for something you can’t return and that has no warranty – is probably just too great.
Something I’ve found useful in other contexts is a service like pricegrabber.com – BE SURE to put your zip code in the little ‘net delivered price’ box when a service offers it. You’d be astounded at the ways sellers can inflate the actual amount of money they make on ‘sale’ items with jacked-up ‘shipping and handling’ – an old scam of discount houses and telemarketers alike. (One of our old direct-mail cardinal rules was “pay for the COGS for the product entirely with the shipping and handling fee” – that’s how they can easily offer a ‘money-back guarantee’ whether you break the ‘product’ or not…)
Knocking on wood – every time I’ve ordered electronic components this way, I’ve gotten exactly what I asked for, and it arrived well-packaged in a comparatively short time, even though it was a ‘low’ price. Of course, use common sense and read customer feedback if you can, as there are a large number of scam artists out there. I’d recommend ordering with a credit card that has a fraud-protection policy in place, if you have one. Etc.
Hi folks, here is a related question for all of you. I have a Radio Shack portable scanner with a short “rubber duckie” flexible antenna and I also use a magnetic roof mount sometimes when in my car. Is there a REALLY good rubber duckie antenna for use right on the scanner that would be worth replacing my original equipment Radio
Shack antenna, and if so can you give me model number and approx. price? Thanks.
Willy,
I agree with TrainJunky, the Vertex VX-150 Transceiver is a very good radio to get. If you only want to scan railroad frequencies. This little radio doesn’t cost anymore than a scanner but it quite a bit more sensitive than many scanners. You don’t need ham license to use it as a scanner, but if you want to use it as a transmitter you can get your ham license. I got my VX-150 from www.universalradio.com and it cost around $120.00. It’s size is one of its great features, it only stands about 6"high.
Hi - I’ve found that Uniden products give me the best results-- I have a Uniden Sportcat 150 - 100 channel and gives me all I need - make sure the sensitivity on the scanner is good - look up the specs before buying. I had a Radio shack one that was not so sensitive & would not pick up all the transmissions. As well get a properly tuned antenna for you car - if you plan on chasing trains , got mine from Railcom. Think they also sell scanners, they advertise in Trains mag .
I’ve always liked Uniden stuff… They have a couple lower priced models that are plenty good enough for just RR stuff. The most basic ones almost always get the RR band. What it really comes down to is, whether or not you want to listen to other stuff besides RR. You may say no now, but radio listening can actually be a pretty addictive hobby. You can oftentimes find yourself wanting to listen to other stuff eventually. You might want to do a search on who uses what frequencies and what kind of radio systems they are on in your area. Some PD and Fire now use digital, or many use trunked systems. Some are on the more basic VHF, while others are on 800 MHz. Then base your purchase on that. Typically radios go from low to middle price range once they start having 800 and 900 MHz, then go up to the higher prices when they start doing trunking systems and digital. But RR will work on the most basic radios if that’s all you want.
Dave
Los Angeles, CA
-Rail Radio Online-Home of the “TrainTenna” RR Monitoring Antenna-
http://eje.railfan.net/railradioonline
Thanxs! I’ve gotten lots of great information!
If I plan on just sitting in front of the train track for an hour or 2 and maybe chasing a train from Omaha to Council Bluffs or just 10 miles at most, do I still need an antenna for the car?
I’ve got a uniden/Bearcat BC 760xlt and it is an excellent scanner, excpet i don’t have the originall antena anymore so the scanner dosen’t work as well as it should, dose anybody know of any websites where i can build my own antena?
If you want the best reseption buy your self a Railcom Antenna from Railcom usa.com.
The “only” problem with useing a scanner in Omaha, is,There will be alot of Radio noise from other sorces such as Pagers and so on in omaha area that WILL interfear with you leastening pleasure,That’s why I don’t go to Omaha that much. If you do plan to railfan outside of Omaha you have a much greater chances of picking up weaker Radio signals. If you just want to use only your Scanner radio and no external Antenna,The best little Antenna the I use that I got from Railcom does my scanner a very good job.
I can hear the UP hot box detector’s over at Mo.valley very well.
So good luck to you!
Oh by the way…If you want a very good Scanner like the others have said go to www.Radioshack.com right now there is a 200 Channel Scanner for just under $100.00. What I think is a very good buy for that kind of a price.
I have a Uniden Bearcat back home and i already miss it. A “used” locomotive antenna makes for good listening at home…
Adrianspeeder
…There is a larger “rubber ducky” type antenna available at Radio Shack…Have never used one so don’t know how much it improves over the stock antenna on a hand held scanner.
Willy2
I have (2) Radio Shack scanners (VHF-UHF-800), (3) Uniden Bearcat scanners (VHF-UHF), (1) Heathkit crystal model (VHF)(shows you how old I am) and an Icom VHF two-way. I am not impressed by the Radio Shack units and do not recommend them, the Uniden Bearcat units work very good and the Icom is the best but it is designed to work in the very narrow band of 160 to 162 MHz. The Icom is used in my work, our frequencies are in the next band above the railroad; I have the railroad frequencies programmed with transmit lock so I don’t accidently transmit on them. This radio is out of your price range. Unless you really want to listen to 800 MHz I would not buy that scanner, the front end is too wide and it will intermodulate (noise and transmissions you have no interest in receiving) in the metro areas, the VHF section has less sensitivity.
I use a Larsen magnetic mount commercial two-way antenna tuned to the center of the railroad VHF band for the car. At home I use a commercial VHF omni antenna and a commercial 5 element yagi (directional) antenna on a rotor. The yagi antenna gives me long range but in one direction. I have a commercial tuned cavity on each base antenna and the mobile antenna, this narrows the front end of the scanner to just the VHF railroad band and eliminates ALL intermodulation. This is not cheap, the cavity I use is about $250.00 per unit but is worth every penny to me to clean up the intermodulation. The earlier comments were correct that the antenna is very important, I have spent several hundred dollars on my three antenna systems but for me it is an extension of the railfan hobby.
With my yagi antenna 50 feet above ground I can receive detectors up to 30 miles away, trains 70 to 80 miles away and base stations more than 100 miles away. If the cloud cover is right I can receive signals even further distant, that is when it gets fun.
The commercial tuned antenna will increase the sensitivity of the scanner and help you pick up
I have two RS handhelds - one 100 channel, one 1000 channel trunking. Both do a great job. Antenna notes are very valid. As for RS vs BC - you may find that some of the scanners between the two are actually the same radio…
I have a BC 16 channel in the truck, always carrying the local CSX channels (it’s there primarily for fire/EMS channels. I’ve been happy with that as well.
I travel some, but I really don’t want to carry all of the nearly 100 AAR channels in a scanner, so finding the local channels can be a challenge, especially with all of the mergers and acquisitions. One area I travel to frequently uses the same channel for NS as I use to listen to CSX in another area - a holdover from CR days.