Railfan Technology > Scanning NS traffic near Greenville SC using just my iPhone

I know this subject has been covered before because when I search Google for apps I get a link to a thread on this board, but it’s at least several years old. I’m not sure technology hasn’t made its suggestions outdated.

I’m totally new to railfanning. I’m having fun but I’d like to at least consider using my iPhone (and only my iPhone) to try to get an idea of what might be in my area if I’m out along the NS line between Atlanta and Charlotte near Greenville SC.

What apps should I at least test to see if I can understand them and make them work..

Posted from iPhone

Well, for radio there's a scanner radio app:

https://scannerradio.app/index.html

You'll have to look through the listings to see the area(s) you are interested in.  It does have railroad listings.
 

Other fairly common websites for that would be Railroad Radio and Broadcastify, the first one doesn't seem to have any offerings in that area. Broadcastify is a major public service radio to Internet provider, including mobile phone aps. I'm hearing they have some problems with their subscription page so tread carefully if trying to pay for anything.

http://railroadradio.net/

https://www.broadcastify.com/listen/

There are ways to build your own receiver and streaming website but that's very different than using the existing services.

For clarity a cell phone can not receive and demod the RR frequencies. They only receive and demode / decode the specific frequencies from the cell tower, a Wi-Fi or a bluetooth set up. The common manner for a cell phone to monitor a RR or any other Public Service broadcast is to monitor a webpage over the internet, the three websites linked above can be monitored via the Internet. The webpage provides the audio from a receiver that has been set up in the broadcast area.

Just making sure we're all talking the same capabilites.

I've just discovered that Broadcastify works quite well with RR frequencies.