What does signal stalker do when your watching mainline trains? Does it display what is coming down the mainline towards you?
Not sure I understand the question. It depends on where you are and the type of signal system in use. Can you clarify it some more?
George
What I mean by this, is because I read in the Scanner Manual you can use a function called Signal Stalker. It’s suppost to display in words on the Screen what Frequency this is and what it is. So, my question is, Will this tell you on the screen if it’s a CSX, BNSF, UP, NS, and so on? Also, will it show what train I.D. it is? I read the manual, but it’s very confusing. So if someone knows what I’m talking about, then tell me.
Maybe forget it, because I can see a confusin coming. I’ll go onto another question about the Scanner, that’s much easier to understand.
What does Squelch do to the scanner, because when I turn it right when someone is talking it has no sound, but when I turn it back left, I get the voice back. Can someone help me understand this better, why turning it right makes the sound dissapear? I did not check this on Mainline Detector.
No, it will not tell you anything about trains. It just means you can “search” for signals in a certain band. What you should do is program the whole AAR set of frequencys. There are less then 100 of them. The first one is 160.215 Mhz and they are spaced .015 Mhz apart. Example:
160.215
160.230
160.245
160.260
160.275
And keep going till all 100 are in. That way wherever you go you don’t have to worry about knowing the frequencys because they will all be in.
Don’t get fusterated. Breath in…breath out…[;)]
The squelch is to quench the volume when there is nothing being recieved. Otherwise you would listen to static between the conversations. To properly set the squelch turn it till you hear static, then turn it back tho other way till it gets quiet, then just a tad more and you should be OK.
OK, I had to check, there are actually 90 AAR channels starting with AAR 7 160.215 Mhz and ending with AAR 97 161.565 Mhz.
Another frequency that is handy is the EOT frequency. you aren’t going to hear any talk but you will hear data bursts when a train is close by. That is 452.9375 Mhz.
If I understand you correctly, when your scanner stops on a transmission, it displays the frequency and you want to know how to tell what RR it is. If you have a copy of Heald’s Scan Rail, you could look the frequency up and tell what RR it was assigned to. There is another book about railroad radio that also has that but the title escapes me now.
George
A good list of the AAR channel list is here. after a while you will figure out which channels are in use in your area. I programmed my scanner with all the channels, and the EOT frequency. My scanner has the ability to set 1 channel in each bank of 20 as “priority”, which means it checks that channel more often. The way the channels are used around here, the priority channels cover most of the mainly used channels.
The EOT channel will sound like a chirp when something is close. Good to have when nobody is talking.
Re: EOT freqs - is NS still on a VHF-High (~160mHz) frequency for their EOT’s or did they join the rest of the world?
The EOT is only intended to talk to the head end of the train, thus the signal strength isn’t really high. This is a mixed blessing. You won’t get super advanced notice of an oncoming train, but if you hear the chirp you know a train is near.
At least as valuable, and maybe moreso, is the talking defect detectors. There’s almost always one within scanner range, even if it only warns you of trains coming from one direction.
As was noted, you’ll eventually figure out who’s on what frequency, at which time you can whittle down the number of frequencies you carry in your scanner to those that apply where you normally 'fan.
Some folks just carry all of the AAR channels on a 100 channel scanner, which is fine if you travel, but a pain if you hear an interesting transmission and can’t figure out where it’s coming from. Then you’ve got to cross-reference the channel number with your lists and hope you can nail it down. Not that it’s not worth it if the channel turns out to have valuable information for 'fanning.
Edit: Just Googled “Signal Stalker”. It’s nothing more than a band scanning feature that looks at every frequency in the specified band on a fairly frequent basis. If it finds something it shows the frequency and allows you to store it. I have the same basic feature on one of my older RS scanners, it’s just not as fast.
The value
I’ve had NS EOTs on the end of UP trains so they must have some in tune with “the rest of the world.”
I’ve seen in this, and other threads, that 161.61 is no longer in the railroad band. When was it removed? It used to be the Rock Island’s road channel. I recall reading (a long time ago now) that after the Rock’s demise that Metra used it on it’s ex-RI lines.
Jeff
NS’s newer EOTs are dual-frequency. When NS units are in the lead, they are in “NS mode” and use 160.115 and when another RR’s unit is in the lead, the EOT is set to “AAR Mode” and it uses the frequency everyone else uses.
Actually, the EOT frequency is 457.9375, the head of train frequency is 452.9375.
You’ll hear a data burst on 457.9375 every so often, more frequently as brake pipe pressure changes. As others have said, this could give you a little advance warning if a train is approaching. Only trouble is, the usable distance can be compromised by train length (i.e., the longer the train, the further you are from the EOT) and other factors. So, you might be better off listening for activity on 452.9375, which occurs less frequently but the signal tends to be heard a greater distance away, because that transmitter is at the head of the train at cab roof height.
If you’re in an area that has multiple active railroad lines, you might end up hearing EOT transmissions on a nearby line. Short of some kind of computer interface to decode the data, there’s really no way to accurately determine the source of the transmissions.
Incidentally, if you’re in an area where DPUs are used, you can forget all about these frequencies. I’ve monitored coal train DPUs on 452.925, 452.950, 457.925, and 457.950; there may be other frequencies. Protocol is for two short bursts of data - the first from the head end, then immediately a chirp from the DPU.
Something not mentioned here so far for tracking trains is ATCS.
ATCS displays route set-up information, although not specific train information (symbol, motive power, etc).
In its original incarnation, modifying a scanner was necessary to get the data, but a number of areas now have servers up that allow one to use the Internet to get the data. Of course, you’ll need Wi-Fi and an access point, or the ability to work off one of the wireless company access points.
ATCS isn’t available/in use on all rail lines. But for those where it is, it’s great. I used it extensively during my last visit to Crossroads Park in Deshler. We may have been surprised by the motive power, or perhaps the consist, but we always knew when a train had been set up to come through the diamonds.