Railfan Technology > Phone app "Scanner Radio"

I was on the June 14 611 trip Lynchburg-Petersburg with my Radio Shack scanner. I had relatively lousy reception. One of my fellow passengers had the "Scanner Radio" application on his cell phone and he was getting way, way more reception than I was. Does anyone have any direct experience with this application?

He simply keyed into the app something on the order of "Norfolk Southern between Lynchburg-Petersburg and the app displayed half a dozen frequencies that it would scan.

He did indicate that the app is a "power hog" but he solves that by putting an extra power pack in his pocket and then cabling it to his phone: did not seem to be much of an issue.

I've used it on my phone when I forgot my scanner at home. Worked well. It's handy to hear traffic from further away than you could with a local scanner...you just need a good cell connection.

Ryan Wilkerson
Fair Oaks, CA

Look into "Tunein Rdio". There are quite a few railroad feeds there.

J.

I use railroad radio on the home PC, I heard about using it as an 'ap'. Here's the Link, I haven't had time or patience to try it out:

http://www.railroadradio.net/component/option,com_xmap/Itemid,178/

It seems like a good idea if you have unlimited data, or a generous data plan and solid cell tower coverage.

I use "Scanner Radio Deluxe" on my iPhone.  It is a free application and has a lot of railroad scanner locations.  I use it all the time and it works great.  For example, I can sit in Folkston, GA and listen to the scanner in Waycross or Jacksonville to hear what is coming.  Just an example, I'm sure there are many places where this can be done.

The only down side is the limits of the iPhone speaker.  You can purchase plug-in external speakers, or if your car has MP3 or Bluetooth connectivity, you can listen to the application through your car stereo.

Hope this helps.

Thanks to all of you for your help. "RFandP Fan" raised a point that I'd overlooked: apparently the "basic" app is free and then there is a fancier version that costs just a few bucks that has additional features.

What I've heard from several people now is that reception may well be better than it is with a scanner. I'll give it a try.

Cool idea- I never thought of this! I did some searching at the various sites recommended and it seems for my area (Erie, PA) there isn't anything. I was hoping there may be a Buffalo or Cleveland CSX/NS feed. My son did download the Scanner Radio Deluxe (he got it for free) on his Samsung phone. We will keep checking to see if a feed is added around us.

Cheers,

Rob Bennett
Fairview, PA
http://youtube.com/user/SirDopeyTheBear/featured

I used the radio feed from railroadradio for about a year and a half until the feed I used was dropped by the owner. It was great, it got good range, far better than with any scanner. At times I could get an hour or two heads up that something was coming. There were dead spots but I had no complaints. The day we bought our first smart phones, I was already checking out the radio feed on the phone before we left the store.

Two things to keep in mind:

If you listen a lot (without wifi coverage) it does eat a lot of data. If you watch a lot of video while waiting, it will just make your data usage go up. Back when I had 2 gb limit, going out two days a week for about 6 hours, brought me very close to that 2gb, and that is without watching any videos.
The scanner feed is delayed anywhere from 30 seconds to several minutes. Does not matter much unless the train you are listening to is getting close. You have to keep in mind that delay.


Gary

Posted from iPhone

Gary - great information: I had not heard about the potential time delay...that is helpful information. Thanks for helping.

Bruce

superchief1944 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Gary - great information: I had not heard about
> the potential time delay...that is helpful
> information. Thanks for helping.
>
> Bruce

Gary is right.  If you have a scanner on at the same time and are close to the scanner feed, you will hear it in real time then a few seconds later hear it again on the app.  I primarily use it for distant points to know what I can expect.  It is a great system if there are active scanners set up in your area.

SN711 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The scanner feed is delayed anywhere from 30
> seconds to several minutes. Does not matter much
> unless the train you are listening to is getting
> close. You have to keep in mind that delay.
>
>
> Gary

Sometimes, when what I hear on the scanner is garbled, a quick listen on the scanner feed on a friend's Smartphone (usually jmf1910, who occasionally railfans with me) will give us the audio without the static. This is where the scanner feed delay can be used to our advantage.

There are some feeds where there's so much chatter (West Sacramento feed covers 4 different UP dispatchers: 62, 57, 74, and 56) that it can be very confusing to an untrained set of ears. There's no substitute for going out there and knowing the territory.

Just tuned into this App...Works great on my MacBookPro....Swedel.....Albany,Or.

Did a quick Google and found this Ap, is this what the OP was using?

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.scannerradio&hl=en

The RRscanner Ap is a different set up than this one.

Loaded an Ap from Google last night called Scanner Rail. They have similar feeds to RRRadio, but a little different, no Dunsmuir but they do have Klamath Falls for example.
Haven't spent a lot of time with it, the feeds seem to be on when you don't know it, which could make embarrassing noises from your pocket during a meeting and also burn up some data minutes.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/16/15 11:49 by TCnR.

Many more such feeds popping up on broadcastify, which is apparently the biggest public service streaming site today (formerly radio reference dot com).  Well indexed by state and county maps.
Tunein dot com and the others don't seem to offer very comprehensive indexing systems...it seems hard for the device to find the stream sometimes unless you know exactly what to type into the search engine.