Railfan Technology > scanner for truck

Want to put a scanner in my truck......would like
some idea of what kind to buy............

Thanks

JLSeale

If you go to the search bar and search this topic in railfan technology for listings going back past a year there you will find many recommendations. It is discussed at least once or twice every 30-60 days.
Lots of info there and I'm sure you will find what your looking for.
Next search antennas. Lots of good info also. There are quite a few Hams on here and they can often offer great advice.

Posted from Android

I've got a Bearcat BC-355N from Bearcat Warehouse. Very nice radio.

Doug Wetherhold
Macungie, PA

Most anything will probably meet your needs as long as it has 100 channels and a decent scan rate.  Everything I have looked at in the past few years has had similar sensitivity, if they even list it, and selectivity, again, if they list it in their specs.  If you are looking for better range, 0.2uV is better than 0.25uV sensitivity.  That can be enhanced with a decent antenna.  Better selectivity can be useful if you are in an urban environment.  If you actually "scan" then the scan rate can be important.  I have a Yaesu handheld and a Baofeng (Chinese) handheld.  The Yaesu will scann 100 channels in about 5 seconds.  The Chinese radio takes nearly 30 seconds.  If you just pick a frequency for the road you are interested in, then scan rate is no big deal.

After that, it becomes a matter of features, or "bells and whistles."  Do you want it to do P25 for the local police and fire?  What about detecting local strong signals?  How about NDXN?  If you answer to that question is "yes," then expect to spend some big bucks ($600+.)  

I'm a ham and I have a Yaesu FTD-400dr that I use on the ham bands but if I'm train chasing, it becomes my "scanner."  It's a digital/analog radio but does not do NXDN.  It has two receivers in it so I can listen to the main road frequency and a secondary that they may also use.  I can listen to two different railroads, or the road and yard.  That radio is in the $500-$650 range so it's probably not something you would be interested in.  It has features for hams but not some of the stuff you would want in a scanner.  As a matter of fact, when you turn it on the first time, you have to enter your call sign before you can do anything else.  Having the dual receive is handy.  I haven't looked at many scanners lately but if you found one with two receivers in it, it might be handy.  It seems to be more common on ham radio or CB radios.  There are some other ham radios made by Icom or Kenwood (and others) that have the feature and are less expensive than my radio, but still in the $300 and up range.  It would be cheaper to by two less expensive scanners.  

It just becomes a matter of establishing a budget and a list of features you want, and then start shopping.

As a previous posting mentioned, search this forum for comments in the past year.  There are also questions about antennas that might be of interest.

John

It's probably not what the OP is looking for, but I've seen Icom IC-5061 NXDN radios for under $500 recently (radio only, no programming cable or software).  If one gets a dealer to program in all the AAR channels, this radio gets close to being competitive with most high-end scanners in price AND will do NXDN digital.  By the way, folks continue to live under the impression that there are only 97 AAR channels.  What the railroads now can be licensed to use are 94 narrow-band analog or very narrow-band digital frequencies and 94 additional very narrow-band digital-only frequencies, plus an additional 94 very narrow-band digital frequencies that could likely come on-line sometime after 2020.   Point here is the Icom and Kenwood NXDN commercial digital radios can be programmed to receive ALL of those channels right now--there is only one $1,000-range mobile scanner that will do that at this time, nothing else.  See the AAR/FCC chanel plan here:

http://www.dpdproductions.com/page_rrfreqs_newplan.html

Lots of good info. But my question is how much railroad radio traffic is on the narrow-band frequencies? And, pardon my ignorance, but how does trunking work and how do you choose a scanner that lets you hear both sides of the conversation?

Thanks for the great info!!

Posted from iPhone

stevedavis Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Lots of good info. But my question is how much
> railroad radio traffic is on the narrow-band
> frequencies? And, pardon my ignorance, but how
> does trunking work and how do you choose a scanner
> that lets you hear both sides of the
> conversation?
>
> Thanks for the great info!!
>
> Posted from iPhone


ALL commercial radio bands went narrow band back in 2013.  A few railroads are now using NXDN digital, but none that I know of are using NXDN trunking.  "Trunking" scanners now on the market, with the excepiton of one $1,000 mobile scanner, DO NOT have any NXDN capability, they use P25 or other trunking platforms.  That's great for public service bands, but the trunking function is useless for railfanning. 

Something that all railfans using radios to monitor railroad radio should know is the relation between radio frequencies and the AAR channel numbers.  Dispatchers and train crews never use frequencies to identify channels--they always use AAR Channel Nos.  The link in my post above to DPD productions shows those relationships.

AAR channel nos. refer to the transmit and receive channel in that order.  For example, an AAR narrowband channel no. for a transmit frequency of 161.4900 and a receive frequency of 161.5650 would be Channel No. 092 097.  If both the transmit and receive frequencies were 161.5650, the AAR channel no. would be 097 097.  Now, if that frequency was an NXDN digital frequency of 161.5650 transmit and receive, the AAR channel would be 487 487.

Some amateur radios and a few scanners will program "alpha tags" (e.g., the AAR Channel No.)  into a radio channel.  That's a very handy feature.  One has to be choosy about the radio that has alpha tags, however.  Some of them will eat memory channels just for the alpha tags, so a, say, 200 channel scanner may only be a 100 channel scanner if alpha tags are programmed in.  All the more reason that I recommend looking at commercial radios for serious railfanning.

 



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 03/10/16 19:44 by WW.