Railfan Technology > Scanner recommendation

There was a time when the word implied "radio scanner" but my search here on TO has brought up a lot of references to photo scanners.

Can anyone suggest a good programmable (they all must be by now) radio scanner? My last one - long since dearly departed - was a Bearcat hand held which (wait for it) had room for SIX crystals and I had to write away for them and send a money order to pay for it.

In the interim, I've been taking pictures but do not have a scanner. For the past 30 years, I have been living overseas where (radio) scanners were not common.

It looks like Bearcat is part of the Uniden line. That's all I know to date.

Rick

Very pleased with my Yaesu FT250, think the 270 has replaced it now...

We have been getting pretty heavy into the topic the past year or so, there's a big pile of posts about what's on the market. It seems to boil down to a handful of radios. Consider whether this would be a dedicated RR hobby scanner or a more general purpose scanner including RR and Police, or Public Safety or Maritime etc.

I've been happy with an older Bearcat that just gave it up, some folks have suggested the Uniden BC125AT. I'm also using either of two Yeasu HAM radios that have extended range to be used in the RR Band. The FT-270 is very rugged with great audio, the FT-60R has the RR band and also the EOT/DPU Band which is very useful in open country with little radio chatter (ie: Wyoming or similar). The HAM radios are tricky to program and have an aftermarket S/W that cleans that up, also documents all your RR frequencies.

Try a search on Yeasu, or Kenwood, or ICO for HAM band radios that work in the RR Band. There are some low cost Chinese Models out there as well, not so sure about how they work out. Amazon is a surprisingly good source for all these radios, not always the lowest price but certainly a good comparison. The HAM radios are a bit higher in price but have very good performance (0.2 microvolts is a typical sensitivity level). The HAM radios are legal without a license if you don't transmit, there is a lockout on the three mentioned name brands. also note that some states and provinces prohibit simple hobby scanners used without a HAM license, kinda out of date thinking.

Also be aware of the antenna performance, lots and lots of posts on that as well,

My 6 crystal Bearcat handheld is sitting in the junk pile with the 10 crystal base radio. They were awesome at the time.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 12/07/17 13:02 by TCnR.

Should have mentioned the possibility of the RR's moving to a digital modulation, which would obsolete the good old hobby scanner that we have known. There are possible scanners on or approaching the market, there's also discussion about when the change-over would be. Try searching on NXDN.

If that happens I would be selling off the two Yeasu HAM radios which would still have some value on the HAM market.

Also use a Yaesu FT-60R. Top notch quality and reception. Replace the antenna that comes with it with a better one. Look at Diamond antennas.
Works great in my car with a magnetic mobile antenna. Also Diamond.

If you're just getting back into railfanning with a scanner I'd recommend starting off with the Uniden/Bearcat BC125AT. While the Yaesu scanners are better they are very difficult to program in the field. The 125AT is much easier to use when travelling to new areas where you might want to add new frequencies or group them into banks. Later as you gain more experience you might consider a Yaesu scanner.

KG

kgmontreal Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> If you're just getting back into railfanning with
> a scanner I'd recommend starting off with the
> Uniden/Bearcat BC125AT. While the Yaesu scanners
> are better they are very difficult to program in
> the field. The 125AT is much easier to use when
> travelling to new areas where you might want to
> add new frequencies or group them into banks.
> Later as you gain more experience you might
> consider a Yaesu scanner.
>
> KG

I wouldn't worry about programming 'difficulties' - all you need is a list of the frequencies where you're going and just scan to those frequencies...it's not rocket science.

I got a Bearcat (Uniden) 125AT a year or so ago. Works well, particularly with a better antenna. FWIW, this comes pre-programmed with ALL of the AAR railroad frequencies so no programming necessary. Just go wherever and turn it on and good to go.

mogul2us

I heartedly agree, especially if you started out with a film can full of chrystals and a tweezer.

Bob Wilcox
Charlottesville, VA
My Flickr Shots

Ah, crystal sets! A crystal in a tiny lead container, a needle (if I remember right), and 180 turns of #28 gauge wire (cloth insulation, or shellac) on a cardboard toilet paper tube. Could feed a headset of the day with usable volume.

I have a Bearcat BC125AT and its great for everyday railfanning
It shows the channel numbers and you can program the railroad names into it as well with a computer.
The recent issue of Railfan and Railroad suggests it or the Bearcat BC75XLT !

Mike Bannon
St Catharines, ON

I've posted so much on this topic in the last 7 years or so that it's tiring, but I'll make a couple of brief comments. BC-125AT, for what it is, is OK. For casual railfanning--meaning railfanning where hearing as much radio traffic that is possible isn't a concern--the BC125AT will perform better than some scanners and it is economical to buy. It also isn't a pain to carry (it uses either rechargeable or can use regular batteries, the charger is compact, etc.). Having the railroad band search function is nice. It is fairly easy to use and, if one chooses to PC program it, that is not too difficult. What it does need is a decent aftermarket antenna tuned to the 160-161.6 mHz railroad band. That helps its reception considerably. Absolutely buy the optional carrying case--this scanner, like most, doesn't have a commercial case that will stand many drops on a hard surface (and you WILL drop it sooner or later if you use it much at all). The case offers some protection.

Where the BC-125AT is pretty much useless: Like any portable radio, it will not work well inside a vehicle unless it is attached to decent external antenna. It won't do NXDN digital, which eventually will be in wide, if not almost universal use on the railroads. That is still several years away, but it is coming.

I did do a performance comparison test with the BC-125AT with several other portable radios that I own, including a Wuoxun KG-UV6X commercial model, a commercial Icom IC-F3161DT NXDN model, the amateur Vertex/Yaesu VX-170 (the Yaesu FT-270R is almost identical) and a Vertex VX-150 (the Yaesu FT-250R is almost identical). I tested all of them in the 160 mHz to 163 mHz band. All had some nature of optional antenna (Smiley Slim Duck or Laird EXH gain antennas tuned to the railroad band are my favorites), except the Wouxun that, for whatever reason, gets exceptionally good performance in the railroad band out of its stock antenna. I switched antennas on the BC-125AT, testing it with its stock antenna, and couple of the performance antennas. Interestingly, it performed about the same with either a gain or unity type antenna tuned to the railroad band. The best overall performer in sensitivity and selectivity, not surprisingly, was the commercial Icom 3161. Second best was the Wouxun KG-UV6X. A comment about the Wouxun--my particular radio has always been a very good performer, but a lot reviews indicate that there is considerable variation in performance quality of individual Wouxun radios--some great, some not very good. The inconsistency in production quality can be fairly typical of a lot of the Chinese brand radios. The VX-150 was next best--about equal to the Wouxun in sensitivity, though it can suffer some from selectivity issues ("intermod" interference). Just a hair behind was the BC-125AT and VX-170. The VX-170 has always had somewhat less sensitivity than its VX-150 cousin, but it, in my opinion, is a bit "friendlier" radio in features. One other performance note: audio output and quality. For railfanning, I consider 500 MW of audio output pretty much a minimum spec. All of the radios tested have at least that, with pretty good audio quality--except the BC-125AT, it's 350 MW. Its audio output will be insufficient in a noisy environment, unless one uses an external speaker or earbud with the radio.

Now, the bad news about the VX-150 and VX-170 (and its successors, as well as all of the Japanese brand amateur portable radios), and I must emphasize this: THEY WILL NOT TUNE THE "SPLINTER" ANALOG AAR CHANNELS THAT WERE CREATED WITH NARROWBANDING--PERIOD. Those channels, even in analog, are open to AAR/FCC licensing and can (and likely will) come into use at some point. The Wuoxun, Icom, and BC-125AT WILL tune those splinter channels. That is why the amateur Japanese portables have fallen off of my "recommended" list. For the record, too, all of the radios listed are PC programmable; but the Icom, being a commercial radio must be PC programmed--a task best left to professional radio users or service techs (I program them all the time, but I've been doing it for years). The Wouxun can be programmed from the keypad, but it is cumbersome and difficult--PC programming is much easier. There are a goodly number of other commercial analog portable radio models out there that will perform very well, but they all require PC programming. As for NXDN-capable portables, there is one Whistler portable scanner model out there, but it is expensive (as costly as some commercial NXDN portable models) and has gotten extremely mixed reviews. Other than that, one's choices for NXDN-capable models are the models built by Kenwood and Icom--the two companies that control NXDN platform licensing for manufacture.

Finally, there is one vendor that commonly advertises in Trains magazine, offering railroad "digital" radios. WARNING: they are NOT NXDN-capable radios, and NXDN is the AAR-adopted standard for digital railroad radio.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/06/17 11:56 by WW.

++ on the comment about a better antenna for the BC 125AT. It made a significant positive difference in mine. A modified Radio Shack magnetic car antenna (cut to correct length for ~ 160 MHz) works spectacularly well for me, massively increasing the range over the (RR tuned) rubber ducky antenna.

Independent of radio, another consideration is how far away you want to listen to trains. I have little to no interest in trying to listen to trains at home (10+ miles from the nearest shortline railroad line and 25+ miles from the nearest mainline) but do use the scanner when rail fanning....nice to hear the defect detectors to indicate an approaching train and direction and to clue you in for unexpected stops, switching movements, etc.

Again...++ on a better antenna and the case too.

mogul2us

I got a MFJ-1717S high gain antenna for my Yaesu FT250 - it definitely improved signal strength/clarity/range compared to the standard one it came with.

Yep, the tri-band antenna is pretty dull compared to a RR Band antenna. The HAM radio stock antennas are optimized for... the HAM band.

I've been using the RR band antennas on other radios and they seem to work ok, the IOT/FRED band seems to come through well enough to catch the train.

There are all sorts of error build up using the radio inside a car. I have done well using velcro to keep the antenna in the window area. There's plenty of reasons to use an outside antenna and low loss cables, but there's also a trade-off. After all, the train is probably going to be pretty close to the train tracks.

A technically good receiver antenna is the telescoping antenna extended to 18 inches. There's another trade-off as that antenna is a metal tube that doesn't bend and can damage the radio's connector. There's always something...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/06/17 19:51 by TCnR.

I really like my Uniden BC125AT. Small easy to use and good quality.