Railfan Technology > Radios for railfanning - in a nutshell

There is a constant stream of posts here on TO that ask the same questions over and over about radios for railfanning.  I’m going to try sum up what makes a good railfan radio in one post.  For the record, I’ve been using 2-way radios for over 40 years, and hold both amateur and business band radio licenses.  I have also used both the older analog technologies and the newer NXDN digital technology that will be the future railroad standard.  So, here we go.
 
Important radio features.
Sensitivity.  Just as its name implies, sensitivity is a measure of how sensitive the radio’s receiver is receiving weak signals.  The good news is that all but the cheapest scanners, amateur radios and commercial two-way radios have very good to excellent sensitivity these days.  The bad news--well, that’s next.

Selectivity.  Selectivity, simply stated, is the radio’s ability to reject unwanted radio interference (“RF”) while allowing the desired signal to be received.  Scanners generally have notoriously poor selectivity, mainly because they, by design, must have a fairly “open” receiver that will receive signals over a broad swath of the radio spectrum.  Amateur radios have generally better selectivity; commercial radios generally have the best.  Years ago, RF interference was mostly a problem found only in metropolitan areas.  With the proliferation of RF-emitting electronic devices, RF can now be a problem most anywhere, even in relatively remote rural areas.  If a radio has poor selectivity, the only way to eliminate the noise of RF is to turn up the squelch settings on the radio—which effectively makes the radio much less sensitive.  So, having a radio with great sensitivity and poor selectivity is essentially the same as having a radio with poor sensitivity and poor selectivity.  It is for this reason alone that I do not recommend scanners for railfanning.

Audio output.  This is another place where most scanners flunk.  Audio output is simply how loud the audio of the radio is.  I consider 500 mW for a portable and 2.5 W for a mobile radio to be a minimum acceptable audio output spec.  Many scanners don’t achieve half that.  There is more to audio output, however, than just wattage—the speaker has to be able to handle the wattage output without distorting the audio to the point that it becomes garbled.  Unfortunately, since audio output wattage has become one of those “bragging rights” specs, manufacturers will often jack up the audio output wattage without increasing the speaker capacity to handle it.  This can especially be an issue on small portable radios, where the physical space for the speaker is limited.  It’s worth noting that the two current commercial portable radio models most purchased by the railroads—the Kenwood NX-210 and the Icom IC-F3161D/3261D—are relatively large radios with physically large speakers.  In mobile radios, speaker size is not as critical only because a larger external speaker can be easily plugged into the radio.  The best way to test audio output is to the try the radio out in a noisy environment, not the hushed quiet of a radio showroom.  Can you hear the audio and is it understandable?

Number of memory channels and alpha-tagging.  If one does not want to be continually fiddling with programming frequencies, then having enough channels available to program all of the AAR railroad channels in the radio is a necessity.  Thanks to narrowbanding, the minimum number of memory channels needed for analog AAR channels is now just under 200.  For analog and NXDN (more about NXDN in a minute), up to close to 500 is better.  Having a visual display and alpha-tagging ability is also crucial.  Why?  Because the only people that use the actual frequency number to talk about a channel are radio technicians and railfans.  Everybody else—and that includes all railroaders—refer to the radio channel by its AAR channel name.  For example, the transmit and receive frequency 160.4550 mHz will mean nothing to 99 out of 100 railroaders, but tell them it’s channel 023 023 and they will know exactly what you are talking about.  The catch with some scanner and amateur radios that are alpha-tag capable is that they will use two memory channels for each frequency when an alpha tag is used, so a 200 channel radio becomes a 100 channel radio if each frequency has an alpha tag.  Buyer beware.

Battery life (portables).  How long will the battery last while railfanning?  This is yet another place where scanner and amateur radio manufacturers may skimp.  I aim for a minimum battery life before recharging is necessary of 8 hrs. of monitoring.  Most amateur and nearly all commercial radios will reach that—some scanners won’t.  Many of today’s portable amateur and commercial radios also have an optional battery case available that will hold non-rechargeable alkaline batteries, a great “spare-tire” type backup to carry in one’s grab bag.
 
A good antenna.  A radio and its antenna together make a working radio.  To repeat an axiom that I posted elsewhere on TO earlier:  A crappy radio with a good antenna will be a poor performer; a good radio with a poor antenna will also be a poor performer.  Most portable scanners and amateur radios are sold with a wide spectrum antenna that is not tuned for the railroad frequencies.  For any portable radio, I recommend buying an aftermarket antenna tuned to the railroad frequencies.  When buying an aftermarket antenna, I also recommend buying one that has an antenna connector built-in on the antenna that fits the connector on the radio on which it will be used.  Many antenna connector adapters will significantly degrade the efficiency of the antenna.  There are several good aftermarket antenna manufacturers out there.  I personally prefer Laird and Smiley antennas, but there are other good ones out there.  For mobile radios in vehicles, I recommend either magnetic or permanent mount rooftop antennas (the vehicle roof acts as a ground plane, which improves the reception capability of the antennas) that are tuned to the railroad frequency band.  Here I tend to prefer Larsen or Comtelco antennas, but there are other good brands, as well.  For permanently mounted antennas, I strongly recommend professional installation.  Radio shops that do installations for a living often know the exact best spot on a particular vehicle to locate the antenna for best reception, and where to route cabling, etc. where it will not interfere with other vehicle systems, such as air bags.

Beefy radio case (portable radios).  Most portable scanners and some portable amateur radios have only a cheap plastic case to protect the radio’s innards.  Railfan with a portable radio very much and it’s pretty much guaranteed that you will drop the thing—Murphy’s law being, of course, that it will land on something hard, like concrete, pavement, rocks, etc.  So, having a beefy case to protect the radio is important.  More and more of the amateur and commercial portables have cases built to Mil-spec standards.  Some of the newest models—the Icom IC-F3261D, for example—are also actually waterproof enough that they can probably be thrown into a swimming pool without damaging the radio (though I certainly don’t recommend trying it).
 
NXDN digital.  NXDN is still just barely peaking over the railroad radio horizon, but it is coming.  If you plan to keep your railfanning radio for more than just a year or two, then I strongly advise getting an NXDN-capable radio.  As far as I know, there is only one mobile scanner currently on the market that will do NXDN—it costs around $1,000—about double the street price for a full-featured NXDN portable or mobile commercial radio.  Currently, only two manufacturers make NXDN mobile and portable commerical radios—Icom (Icom calls NXDN “IDAS”) and Kenwood.  The flagship NXDN portable radios for railroad use are the Icom IC-F3161D/3261D and the Kenwood NX-210.  In mobiles, they are the Icom IC-5061D and the Kenwood NX-700.  Icom just introduced a bunch more NXDN models at the two-way radio show in Las Vegas, but they won’t be available for sale until later this year.

Computer radio programming software.  Most amateur radios have computer programming software and cables available, either from the manufacturer or the aftermarket, that is easily available and affordable.  It makes programming the radio much easier.  Commercial radio programming software, by contrast, is usually expensive and often hard for the ordinary person to buy. Commercial radio programming cables are often proprietary and expensive--with many aftermarket cables, though advertised otherwise, not capable of allowing the radio to communicate with the PC.  Also, commercial radios can be tremendously complicated to program for a layperson, with many features not present on either scanners or amateur radios.  So, my recommendation here is that programming software and cables for amateur radios are a great help, but the programming of commercial radios should generally be left to a radio dealer or shop--with, of course, the radio tech understanding from the railfan what he or she expects the radio to do.
 
Radio features that you don’t need for railfanning.
Keypad frequency programming.  This was a “must have” back in the days of 16 channel radios.  Today, with radios having 200+ channel capability, one can computer program all the available AAR channels into the radio’s memory and be done with it.  Then just select what channel to monitor and/or what channels to add or delete from a scan list.

Ultra high-speed scanning.  Scanner manufacturers love to brag about scan speed.  It’s nice if your monitoring 100 channels on the public service bands, but most railfans are only monitoring about dozen channels at a time, often less than that.  Most any amateur or commercial radio has a scan function that is fast enough for most railfanning situations.
 
In conclusion.
I’m sure that I’ve forgotten some things, but this should be a good starting point.  Radios for railfanning follow the same axiom of most tools: quality and performance cost more, but do the job much better.  In my work, every minute that I’m working, I am required to be within earshot of my two-way radio—be that base, mobile, or portable.  Needless to say, I’ve figured out what works best.  The same goes for when I’m railfanning.
 

Thanks for the in-depth information. You covered it well. Whether it was about sensitivity and selectivity or antennas, you gave a lot to look for when buying a new radio.
Bob

I have to back up everything you said.  Sensitivity + selectivity + a decent antenna make for a good receiver.  Add a decent speaker and you have a real winner.  And like you said, in an effort to minimize the size and weight of the radios, they can only get about a 1.25" speaker in them, maybe 1.5" and that detracts form all of the other good points.   Almost all modern scanners, ham radios, and commercial radios all have respectable sensitivity these days but selectivity can really vary.  Thanks for posting a great article.

 I'll be posting an NXDN update in about 45 days.  Right now, the only thing I know of that might be coming on line will be a product from Alinco.  They have a UHF NXDN radio now.  Maybe they will have a VHF in the pipeline soon.

John

One other big thing that I've mentioned in other posts, but bears repeating here:

Narrow-band capability.  Is the radio REALLY narrow-band capable?  Most current scanners are truly narrow-band capable--they will tune the new "splinter" frequencies that narrow-banding has created, but they just don't perform well in any other aspect.  Most all commercial radio models sold in the last 10 years are truly narrow-band capable--all currently sold commercial models MUST be narrow-band compliant.  Not so with amateur radios.  Only a handfulof the amateur radios will tune the splinter channels.  Most amateur radio marketing ads say that the radio model that is being advertised is  able to switch to narrow band, but dig into the radio and you will find that it can be switched to narrow-band on the channels it can tune, but it lacks the capability to actually tune to any of the new splinter channels.  That is why most all amateur models have dropped off my "recommended" list.  On the mobile side, the one amateur model that I still recommend is the Kenwood TM-281A--it will tune the splinter channels and is an excellent radio, as well.  On my list, there is now no portable scanner or amateur radio that I can recommend.  One thing that will often confuse railfans--narrow-band analog and NXDN digital are two different things.  The best narrow-band analog radio out there is still just that--a narrow-band analog radio.  NXDN-digital radios, by contrast can do both--operate as a narrow-band analog radio AND  operate in NXDN digital.

Good explanation and info.  Thanks.

Have any of the new divided channel assignments actually be granted and placed into use anywhere?

To bad this post cant be a sticky as they call it on RadioReference.com. It covers some pretty good info.

Wally... Excellent summary! I just ordered a Uniden BC125AT as a reasonably priced scanner that does narrow band FM and the mititary air band. Amazon.com has them available for $106. Until the prices drop on a NXDN radio, I'm not going to worry about it too much.

Your post is a good primer for those who aren't famiiar with radios.

 

James Nelson
Thornton, CO
www.flickr.com/mojaveflyer

I'm not Wally . . .

In many years past, I would always recommend a scanner with common batteries such as AA  and not specialty batteries that were expensive and hard to obtain.  This was a problem with the old HX 1000 series.  A great unit, but expensive batteries.  Not sure how this applies today,  have given up on scanners. as age/medical takes its tole.

WW Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I'm not Wally . . .

Where's Wally...?

Great info, thanks !

There seem to be several Icommodels bearing the F3261D numbering with some different numbers following for different features. Can you be more specific as to model for rail listening use?

thank you

The IC-F3261 comes in several different variants.  The model suffixes are as follows:   the "D" is the digital model (NXDN).  "T" indicates that it has a full 10-key DTMF keypad.  "GPS" indicates that the radio has a module to determine its location from GPS satellites and send that location when it transmits.   For railfanning, an IC-F3261DS should be sufficient for most users.  If one desires to have the 10-key DTMF keypad, then the IC-F3261DT is a good choice.  If one is only using the radio for receiving (and that should be only use a railfan should be making of one of these radios on the railroad channels), there is no need for the GPS capability to be in the radio.  The now-discontinued IC-F3161 radios are still available (they use the same letter designations to delineate the various submodels--"D", "T", etc.) and differ little from the 3261, except that the 3261 has louder audio output specs and is fully waterproof, which the 3161 is not.  I would think that 3161's might start to show up at discounted prices at some point.  I use a 3161 in my work and it is a very good radio; the 3261 is just an improvement on an already pretty good design. One cautionary note about the 3161 and 3261--they use different programming cables, but a number of aftermarket sites show the 3161 programming cable as compatible with the 3261 radio-- it is not.

A side note--Icom has introduced a whole new batch of NXDN (IDAS in Icom nomenclature) radios, but there is very little information about them as yet.  I'm told that they probably won't be available for sale until sometime during the summer.  Icom's website has some pictures and talks about their basic features, but no specs and no pricing, as yet.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/07/16 16:15 by WW.