Im new to railfanning, and I was wondering if I can use my radio shack walkie talkie to pick up engineer and defect detectors like a scanner.
And, for something better than asking a question, I went to Jesup, Ga today (I live in Savannah, Ga) to go to the railfan platform there. Pretty nice with a fan and good scanner. The scanner helped me figure out were the trains were(my luck, I was there 6 hours and only saw 2 [my EXTRA luck is while I was eating at a restaurant, I hear 2 TRAINS GO BY IN LESS THAN 10 MINUTES FROM EACH OTHER! Man, was I mad.]) Those 2 both came from the Nahunta sub about 1/2 mile south of me, you can easily see the turnout going to Folkston, as well as the one Going to Waycross. There is a defect detecor just about 2 miles from there, which gave us plenty of waring they were coming. The first nice conductor waves at me, but the second mean conductor looked right at me and didnt wave. [:D]
I have a feeling you are confusing the uses of two different type of radios:
Walkie-talkies (radios that can transmit and receive) we could afford do not scan a bank of channels.
No dealer who hopes to stay in business and out of prison would sell you one.
Radio Shack does not sell a walkie-talkie that recieves or transmits on the frequencies railroads use. They are on a completely different band than walkie-talkies for sale to the general public.
If you owned a walkie-talkie that allowed you to transmit on railroad frequencies, it would be against federal law. Transmitting by the unauthorized on the frequencies is a felony. Unless, of course, you had an FCC license to transmit signals on those frequencies, which you could never get.
If you did manage to do so, you could be charged with be malicious interference with a communications system licensed by the FCC and a count of transmitting radio signals without a license. The two charges carry a potential penalty of 11 years in federal prison.
Well yes and no. You don’t have an amateur radio license do you because that is a whole different ballgame?
If not then you need to check which frequencies you can receive on a handheld radio. Look up on the internet or get a book and see if the railroad frequencies are covered. I’m not sure if radio shack sells any handhelds that also receive the rail frequencies. However, unless you just need to talk to someone else, then all you would need is a scanner (much cheaper too).
I do have an amateur radio license, and I regularly use my car mounted and handheld radios to scan for trains. I cannot transmit on rail frequencies, but I can receive on them. They basically pick up all of the same frequencies that a traditional scanner would, but they only transmit on the band of frequencies designated for ham use.
RS sells Family Radio Service (FRS) walkie-talkies (along with just about every big-box and sporting goods outfit). They won’t do you a bit of good as they are in the 400 MHZ UHF band.
RS also sells VHF-HI walkie-talkies on the itinerant frequencies (red dot, blue dot, etc). Unless you have the ability to reprogram them, they won’t help either, and they’re usually just single or two channel besides.
They might also have the GRS radios, which are also pre-programmed for specific frequencies, although I don’t remember the band.
I acquired (legally) a walkie-talkie that I use for both the railroad (legally - I volunteer with them) and for local fire and EMS (also legally - I am a firefighter/EMT). I can program it, and it will scan. I’m not sure how well John Q. Railfan would fare if caught trackside with one like it, however, even if all of the channels were programmed for receive only…
It was much more expensive than a pocket scanner and only has 32 channels in the VHF-High range - a real limitation if you also want to listen to public safety and others on your scanner as well. And I certainly wouldn’t want to get caught at a public safety incident with what appears to be a walkie-talkie if I didn’t have a reason to have one.
…Be on the up and up and purchase a R S 200 channel scanner and you can {in general}, scan all through the RR channels and safety transmissions, aircraft, marine and much more and hear the chatter.
They work rather well…I’ve had 2 of them and still use one currently for listening to RR chatter and defect reports to ID trains in the area, etc…
You can get more scanner than you will ever need for less than $200. F’rinstance, Radio Shack has a 200 channel for $100. Most have “banks” of channels - you can set up banks for the areas you frequent, if you like.
The only thing you might gain with a professional hand-held radio is greater sensitivity, but at a price. As has been suggested numerous times, get a good antenna. You’ll be in great shape.
Ok frequencies and channels are two different things. Channel’s are designated radio frequencies. Think of the presets on the radio in your car. Channel 1 may mean 101.5 for example. What you need to do is find out what frequencies the railroads use in your area. This can often be done on the internet. Here are the frequencies and channels set by the AAR:
So as an example if they are on channel 7 then you need to tune your scanner over to 160.215. Now if you have a dispatcher talking on one channel and the engineer on another and the switchmen on yet another then you will have to scan between the various channels.
Often a good scanner will allow you to program in the appropriate radio frequencies and it will automatically scan through them until it picks up a transmission and it will stop.
HTH
Edit: Read through the stuff at the bottom of that link that I posted and see if it helps some more.
…Yes, above poster is giving you the right direction. The RS 200 channel portable, programable scanners I’ve had give you 200 slots to program in the frequencies you care to have it scan…and as posted above, find the ones you want to listen to and program them into it. You simply use the “key pad” to insert the frequencies into the channels. Then you are ready to “scan” across them and wait for one or more to “open” when it is active and you can listen to them.
Typicaly a scanner will be able to tune the walkie talkies, but not the other way around. They are two diferent animals. Especially the cheap ones. There are other things to consider besides frequency. There is modulation type (FM-Frequency modulation or AM-Amplitude modulation), and bandwidth. Walkie talkies are FM like railroad radios (unlike CB that is AM) but unless it’s a high end walkie the bandwidth will likely be too wide on the walkie to get decent reception of 12.5 kHz SSB (single sideband) railroad radio even if it could be tunned to the 160-161 rr band. It can be done but unless you are a RF technician, well, just buy a scanner. Scanners are cheap.
I use a scanner. Don’t ever get caught with a Public Safety type walkie talkie if you don’t have reason to have one. I have an old Motorola Radius P200 that I used to use when I was a Firefighter/EMT. About 12 years ago, I got pulled over, and the radio was on my front seat…I had a heck of a time explaining to the officer that I was authorized to carry it…I got a speech on the illegalities of carrying one of those… As for the radio now, it was in storage for so long, the battery is no good…
There are some ham radios that can also receive outside the ham bands and if the 160-161 MHz band is included, then you can listen to the RR band. Some people like those radios because the quality of the electronics is usually a bit better and they’re also more focused on one band, which helps increase reception. On the down side, they’re usually a little harder to program then a scanner.
Even the most basic scanner will get the VFH RR band, so you can find a good deal there. The Uniden BC72xlt is a good economy scanner that will do what you want. Or, you can get a desktop model and use an external antenna to hear at longer distances.
I have an extensive list of RR freqs on our site below.