I recently posted a video of the Yaesu radio I use while railfanning http://youtu.be/Cr7BKCAcLqsv <–video
I started out years ago with Radio Shack scanners, but the paging intermod from the nearby mountaintops was unbearable for finding trains.
What does everyone else use?
Until budget permits, I’m using an ancient RCA RP-6150 scanner (Radio Sh clone). Haven’t noticed intermod, but the lack of sensitivity almost requires line-of-sight to the loco.
When at home, I use railroadradio.net … [Y]
My Motorola HT 1250…[;)]
…Ed has the real stuff there…I really don’t use mine as much as I did at one time, but what I have is the second Radio Shack 200 channel portable scanner that I’ve owned.
And I’ve had this one for some time now…Not even sure of model now, I don’t have it in front of me, I think it’s a Pro 51.
I have an at least 20-years old, trusted, Uniden Bearcat 210XLT base unit (which was hard to find at the time) with an RG-8 (NOT RG-58) coax to a roof antenna.
Sensitivity is 0.3. In my from personal experience opinion, anything higher than that number (like 0.4, 1.0, etc.) is junk. Units of 0.3 or lower are gems to listen to! (Old Regency’s had a sensitivity of 0.15. Wow!)
Determining sensitivity is increasingly hard to do. With a unit with a good sensitivity, well, its manufacturer will almost always want to tout it! In sales, if sensitivity is NOT mentioned for a radio scanner product, there is a reason for it, and it is probably of the very disappointing type.
Nothing beats a good commercial grade radio such as a Motorola Spectra. Receive Only, of course. [swg]:
I started with a Radio Shack Pro92 and I liked everything about it except the weather radio feature is silly… It checks the frequency every second and if it finds the warbble tone indicating they are about to broadcast an alert, the radio sounds off with its own warbble tone, but requires that I press a button to actually listen to the alert that is broadcast… I don’t understand why it does not stop playing its own tone and just switch on the audio so I can hear the broadcast. I read reviews of it where people thought the ability to enter text names for the various frequencies it is scanning was dumb, but I liked that feature the best of all.
I then bought a Radio Shack Pro 94. It has a much better backlight for the display but it does not stay on long enough for me. It scans much faster than the Pro92, but does not have a weather alert feature at all. And it does not have the ability to enter a name for the frequencies in the scan table.
I do use the Pro94 most often since it is faster and has the better backlight, but I prefer the weather feature (flawed as it is) and the ability to enter a text name for the frequencies of the Pro92. I wish I could fix the flaw in the weather feature and combine the two into one scanner.
I have not noticed much problem with the switchover to the narrow banding of the channels. Audio seem just as loud as before. But I don’t think any RRs here are using the new (intermediate) channels yet. I am wondering what it will sound like when one is in use and I can’t tune exactly to it.
Like Ed, I use a pro grade radio (Kenwood) - because I’m actually working on the railroad. I also have the local Class 1 channels in it - receive only, not to mention a number of fire and EMS channels - because I’m also a fire chief.
I picked up some Puxing VHF handheld radios fairly cheap. There is a US version under a different name. I’ve found them to be decent radios, a little hot on the receive, actually. We’ve used them on the railroad when we were short radios, and I’ve used them in the fire/EMS arena as well.
They are field programmable and can scan, although I haven’t used the scan myself.
Otherwise, I’m using a couple of RS scanners. One is conventional, the other will do trunking, because when I travel I often listen in to local FD’s, and trunking is becoming commonplace.
My favorite handheld. IIRC they are narrow band capable but the HT1000’s are not. I use my ICOM IC-V8 that I use at work. Much better then a scanner anyways.
My handheld scanner is an Electra Bearcat (Pre-Uniden) BC Four Six, six-channel crystal controlled unit from 1979. My base station is a Uniden Bearcat BC145XL 16-channel programmable unit. Neither have ever failed me. [swg]
I have a Kenmore err… Kenwood Tk290. Not as good as the old Motorolas some of the guys here had, but they’re all gone with the replacements being new Kenwoods or ICOMs. I think the TK290 is slightly better than those, even though I wish I had the text display.
But my radio is built like a tank. Thing has seen dirt, mud, and water many times and keeps going.
But the HT 1000s were pretty much bullet proof, I must have dropped mine from a moving train 4 or 5 times, it survived it every time.
Railroad made me replace it only after the battery clips broke, and they got antsy about the duct tape holding the battery in place.
Our rookies were all issued Kenwood, they sound great, but the range is a little lacking, and interference from a EMS channel in Louisiana bleeds through on them a lot.
Which radio? I have five current and working radios that can cover that spectrum. Two for ATC (VHF and Uniform), one for local emergency service, one for ACARS, and the Motorola set to scan. I keep three of them in this room going at all times. And that is not mentioning LiveATC from time to time as well.
I use a DR-610 Dual Bander, base & mobile. Excellent sensitivity and selectivity. When out in the field I use a baby monitor left inside in the pickup. Others can’t beleive the range my handheld scanner has. They are even more shocked to see my BC-245 set on 49.820 hearing everything in a 30+ mile radius on one channel.
Imagine that poor mom hearing voices coming from her baby’s room!
Gotta admit, though - that’s a unique solution!