Railfan Technology > NXDN scanner now available

Whistler announced 2 new scanners this summer, the TRX-1 handheld and the TRX-2 base/mobile, and stated NXDN would be added via a firmwear update.  As of Dec 15, that firmwear update was released.  The initial release had some issues but Whistler quickly updated and made another release, that now appears stable.  So for those of you who have been asking about NXDN, it is now available.

I do not own the scanner, but am considering getting one for the car, if so, Ill update the group.

One other item about this scanner, it has discriminator output via headphone jack that can be turned on via a menu item (so I have  read).... this would be very handy for those who utilize ATCS on their laptops in the field, not needing to modify the radio.  Lots of information is available on the radioreference.com website, for those interested.

These radios might be OK if one is interested in listening to more than the railroad frequencies, but they are, as most reviews clearly state, not intended for "novice" radio users.  Also missing from any of the advertising of these radios that I've seen are their selectivity, sensitivity, and audio output specs--all very important information for a railfan radio buyer to have before spending $500+ on a radio.  If some of the other digital scanners are an indication, the specs are probably not being publicized because they are pretty poor.

So, I stand on my ongoing recommendation--if you want an NXDN radio for railfanning, buy one of the commercial NXDN models and have it programmed for all of the AAR channels on receive only.  The "street price" for some of those NXDN commercial radios is about the same as these NXDN scanners and the radio performance of the commercial radios will almost certainly be considerably better than the scanners. 

Just passing it on since now available.  I happen to have an Icom 3161 with NXDN but nothing close to test.  From what Ive read on that web site however, the TRXs seem to do pretty good.  I expect that other scanners will add the NXDN as time goes on, if nothing else Whistler may spur others to add it.  



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/22/16 07:23 by skyview.

Thanks for passing on the info. Interesting point about ATCS as well.

Hey Tim... The Pueblo Test Track is using NXDN modulation if you get over the hill to the south of you to try the radio out. I believe the Cumbres & Toltec is also using NXDN modulation as well but that's a distance from where you are. 

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

Yes I need to get down Pueblo direction, course I wont know if they are using it as I cant get in and actually watch someone raise a handset.  In the Cumbres case I can, but as you said long way.  Just good to see one scanner maker add this to two scanners, from what Ive read its not hard and other's will probably follow suit.  Once its being used, the scanner maker's usually add.  I rember way back in the 80s or 90s, before digital, the worry was no scanners would ever get the new digitial systems that police/fire/etc were installing, of course that changed.

I've read of someone using a USB SDR stick and 25 dollar software and can decode NXDN, so not too hard evidently.

skyview Wrote:
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>
> I've read of someone using a USB SDR stick and 25
> dollar software and can decode NXDN, so not too
> hard evidently.

There is a free SDR software available along with some info at â€‹http://airspy.com/ You can find the receivers at that location,  Amazon, or other locations.  There is/was an NXDN add on available.  The problem is that Airspy rewrote the software for Windows 10 and many of the plugins that worked on previous versions don't work with the new version.  The NXDN plugin was one of those.  Also, it takes another plugin for Windows 10 since MS removed the ability to pass audio from the audio out directly to the audio in for, in this case, decoding the nxdn signals.  

John