My freind and I like taking our scanners out railfanning with us. It really helps us to know what the railroad is doing. However, we seem to be having some scanning issues with reception.
I live out in the county near Lafayette IN. and when i’m at home I can’t pick up ANYTHING railroad. However, when i’m in the vacinity of Lafayette, I do a better job of pulling things in. I own a Radio Shack PRO-106 digital trunking scanner and a extendable whip antenna. This is a huge improvemnent over the rubber duckey that came with the scanner but still not picking much up. How do the railroaders pull in so much on their radios?
What equipment can I get that will allow me to pull in these transmissions? Do I need a new antenna? A new scanner? PLEASE HELP ME!!!
I’m not familiar with the technology involved with your current scanner, but railroads are changing to narrow band frequencies mandated by the FCC. An older scanner will experience some loss in signal strength due to the narrower frequency band.
If you use the forum’s search function and enter the phrase ‘narrow band’ you will get references to several past threads on this subject, such as:
The narrowband issue notwithstanding, two things can affect your reception - receiver sensitivity and your antenna.
What the railroads (and pretty much any other “professional” user) have that you don’t is a radio with excellent sensitivity and an antenna tuned to the band, or even the frequency, being used.
You can’t do much with the sensitivity, but you can use an external antenna (for home and mobile scanning, anyhow) that is tuned to the center of the railroad band. An outside antenna at home (the “J-Pole” is easy to build) will make a world of difference.
Reception is for the most part, line-of-sight. When you are home, is there a hill between you and the tracks? If so, that will block the radio signals you’re trying to pick-up. Move your antenna to higher ground and see if that helps.
One other thing to keep in mind, is that the railroads use equipment specifically designed for their use. Everything is designed (and tuned) to maximize the signal in the rr freqeuncy band. Your scanner is made to pick up everything and in doing so, has many compromises that make them less effective in the rr band.
One thing I found that helped is using a tuned antenna like Railgain sells. Before narrowbanding, I regularly heard tranmissions upto 40 miles away. After narrow banding, I can’t make out the dispatcher at that distance. BTW, I have the same telescoping antenna and the railgain blows it away by a larger margin than this one does vs a rubber ducky.
I have the exact same antenna as the TC, and it puts rubber duckies to shame so bad, you almost have to wonder why rubber duckies are even standard since most of them are just put in storage.
I’m curious in how Railgain antennas compare to the telescopers in reception of RR freqs., as well as reception of non-RR freqs. What do Railgain antennas cost? Also, I’m curious how signals in general have changed since narrowband was incorporated. What is the approximate reduction in strength that has occurred?
Also, for the TC, what will you do with so many channels? I guess you’ll never have to worry about running out of room. As for signal reception, you need to describe for us the way railroading is done in your area, so we can measure what you’re up against. I’m mostly out in the middle of nowhere, so I hear nothing unless there is a crew working the local plant yard (and that’s until they get too far back in). I’m in a hilly area, BTW.
Still, the antenna in use greatly affects reception. There is actually quite a variety in what train crews hear. First, your local dispatcher, or anyone listening from the radio base, will have the best signal reception. Just go to one of those bases and check out the huge antennas there, and you’ll see why. They can easily hear some of the weakest things when I get mostly static or low audio. That being said, line-of-sight is key. Plenty of times, I’m up on a hill hearing both the conductor and dispatcher okay, yet the dispatcher isn’t able to make out the train crew, so my hill beats the super antenna. Next, the locomotive transceivers and van driver’s radios are next in strength of broadcast and reception. Finally, the conductors’ handhelds are at the bottom, putting out signals getting only a few miles mostly. Sometimes someone with a better radio (the loco cab or van driver) will have to relay a message from the conductor if his measly signal isn’t making it p
I am a big scanner railfan. I have my RS Pro433 on here in my office as I work.
Antennas are a huge difference maker, or at least are for me. A couple of years ago I purchased the Railcom (railcom.net) antenna which was advertised in TRAINS mag. Once I figured out it needed to be separated from all my computer hardware, fax machine, printer, guitar amp, etc. my reception really improved.
Like the OP, I am in Indiana and while it is generally flat here in NW Indiana, there is a morraine running thru the land, with CSX’s line following thru a fairly low part. Thus, my CSX reception is sort of mixed. While I am on high land, there are hills between me and them. I can usually pickup CSX trains calling signals out about 12-15 miles, sometimes out to 20 miles.
When I place the antenna on my garage roof and move outside in summer months, my reception typically goes from 12-15 miles to 20-25 miles with occassional 30 mile reception (locomotives). I typically pickup the CN dispatcher off the South Bend and Chicago feeds. Just heard the CN dispatcher talking to a train in Chicago - 45 miles out. Only heard the dispatch side of the conversation.
NS - ex Conrail is about 10 miles north of me and dispatch/trains are easily picked up.
Invest $90 or so on an antenna (hey, it makes a great Christmas gift). If you ground the antenna on something big and metallic, such as a car you might be able to hear all the way to Peru or Danville.
In the house, I ground my antenna to a tie plate picked up out in the field. A Weber grill top works great too. If you can swing a mounted pole about 25 feet up that really works.
The critical thing is to get an antenna that is tuned to the railroad wavelength. Now…how that pertains to narrowband I cannot answer.
Base station: Often 100 watts and more, plus elevation and a big antenna.
Locomotives: Generally 45 watts with a fixed antenna that uses the locomotive as its ground plane.
Mobiles (cabs, hi-rails, etc): 25-45 watts. Once again, they are often a fixed/body mount, although mag mounts still use the vehicle for a ground plane.
Handhelds/portables: 5 watts. The rubber ducky antenna is usually the antenna of choice, as it’s too easy to break a rigid antenna. I generally get good performance from my commercial handheld with the rubber duck.
Antenna length (for a straight 1/4 wave, base loaded antennas are different):
For 160.000 MHz: 18.45" (low end of the AAR channels)
For 161.565 Mhz: 18.27" (high end of the AAR channels)
The midpoint between them is about 18.375", or 18 3/8". If you adjust a telescoping antenna to that length, you should optimize your reception. The eighth of an inch in either direction is negligible.
I am a bit confused. It sounds like i need to invest in a railroad banned antenna? In Indiana i can’t leagaly put an antenna on my vehicle unless I am a voulnteer fireman. So i will have to stick to a scanner mounted antenna. when I railfan I take the scanner with me outside the car and leave the antenna on it. Where can I order one od these railroad banned antennas?
Also, how would I make a home antenna? Could I use my flag pole?
I can’t see how they can enforce a law on antennas on a vehicle - I have a “cell look” VHF-HI antenna on my truck - I doubt anyone would suspect it to be anything else. For that matter, a VHF-HI base loaded antenna isn’t all that different in appearance from a base loaded CB antenna. I wouldn’t worry about that as much as the law against having a scanner in your vehicle in the first place.
A bit more troubling is the implication that it’s illegal to have a scanner on your person even as a pedestrian (which would apply to standing trackside).
In general, if you’re behaving yourself, and don’t have any police frequencies actually programmed in your scanner, you’re probably going to be OK. But that’s not a legal opinion - that’s a personal opinion. The actual results may vary depending on the mood of the officer that day.
As for a base antenna - it depends on what you can do. You probably don’t want to mount an antenna on a flagpole if you’re still using the flag pole. The flagpole itself wouldn’t be a good antenna.
“It sounds like i need to invest in a railroad banned antenna”
-You want a railroad BAND antenna. You should not be using a BANNED antenna anywhere. While homonym mixups are quite common anywhere, I really want to point out this one to you, so you aren’t suggesting to people that you’re doing something illegal. And if I know cops, they’d really use your simple mixup to screw you over big time. “Well, he even admitted right from the start he knew the antenna was BANNED, and he used it anyway, so lock him up and throw away the key! He’s using a BANNED antenna, so he’s probably a terrorist.” And for all we know, this type of remark, especially with the Patriot Act, might not be farfetched at all.
Second, what about amateur radio? Depending on the laws on your state, getting even a Technician license may allow you access to various antenna usage you may not be allowed to do otherwise. Perhaps bringing this up with your local ham radio club may give some ideas.
I’m not up on the current offerings, or changes in the industry, but learn this well: Scanners nowadays are JUNK, JUNK, and JUNK!
Twenty years ago I had an embarrassing experience at Summit in Cajon Pass of Southern California.
CAPTION: Security is tight at Summit of Cajon Pass, with night floodlights and a manned guard shack. It was in this area K.P. had his bad scanner experience as related below, when there were no floodlights, nor security, and everything was rather rosy for railfans in s totally different age and time.
I was trying out a new scanner that had a SENSITIVITY of 0.4. A railfan had a scanner with probably a sensitivity of 0.15. His was making all kinds of noise, mine was totally silent. (Radio Shack offerings at the time were around 1.0, some even 2.0.) That is when I learned about sensitivity. Needless to say, I returned my 0.4 unit, and purchased a base unit with a sensitivity of 0.3. It too makes all kinds of noise even till this day.
The last I checked, Scanner World only had two offerings with a sensitivity of 0.3. All their other offerings didn’t list sensitivity, so I would assume everything else they had was junk.
Cable is secondary, and on a handheld, irrelevant.
It is hoped this puts matters into perspective for you, babbajustin.
I second this suggestion. If you have any technical inclination at all, getting the technician license isn’t that hard. A good 2 meter band transceiver with the appropriate antenna will be a great railfanning asset. Check out the Ham Radio Outlet web site (and others) for possibilities. I have my eye on the Yaesu FT-250 - anyone have any experience with this one?
I can’t recall for certain, but I think that some Pittsburgers may have experience with that model in the ham radio community. You could maybe look up the Three Rivers Area Monitoring Assciation (TRAMA) of Pittsburgh, PA, and contact them to see if any of them have this knowledge if noone else gets back to you.
I was told during a recent conversation with a signal engineering executive with a major class one RR that by 2014 or 15 and the implementation of new Security procedures RR two way conversations will be encoded and scrambled and that the radio frequencies of the signaling used by the ATCS monitor fans will be changed as well…Homeland Security directives and the new PTC signaling.
I suspect you’re going to see that in the public safety arena as well. Encryption is common already, and at least one sheriff I know of picked the radio system he did specifically because it cannot be scanned…
Encryption of digital transmissions is phenomenally easy - far more so than for analog. While there are very secure encryption systems available, even a simple system puts those transmissions out of reach of the average scanner enthusiast.
The day may not be terribly far off when the only thing you’re going to be able to hear on your scanner will be taxis and fast-food drive-thru’s…
Sadly, we are giving the terrorists their victory (changing our way of life and giving away our freedom to listen to the airwaves) that they couldn’t achieve on the battlefield.
As for the performance of the www.railcom.net railgain antenna, re-read the last sentance of my first post.
Speaking of Yeasu radios, I have an old FT50 that I “liberated” from the dustbin. A friend and I both have railgain antennas. In Side by side scanning, the Yeasu picked up more transmissions than my friend’s RS scanner.
