Railfan Technology > Looking for a multipurpose radio

I am trying to find an easy to program radio for several different uses

Scanning Railroad frequencies

Receive and transmit on British Columbia forest resource road channels which are 150.080-152.670

And if it would work as a 2 meter/440 ham radio it would be great since I am planning to test for my Technician class license soon

Thanks for any assistance

Posted from Android

You could combine the railroad frequencies and the ham band in one radio (I monitor the railroads on my ham radios) but combinng the business band for the forest frequencies would be difficult. Most amateur radios have expanded receive, I even monitor the local airports when I'm out photographing airplanes.

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

Tidradio TD-H8 ---- not great at anything but gives you something of everything.  It can also be unlocked.

Bob

I can't speak to Canada radio regulations; this is sort of broad brush summary (somewhat incomplete) of U.S. regulations. In the U.S., the ONLY radios that can legally transmit on the frequencies that are assigned to business and government are FCC Part 90 Certified radios (the only narrow exception being in a bona fide emergency when other modes of communication are not available).  Period.   There are a few of the Chinese radios--typically the more expensive ones--that are Part 90 Certified, but most are not.  In fact, some of the cheap Chinese radios are not certified to legally transmit on any of the U.S. commercial or amateur band channels.   Some Chinese radios try to "fudge" the rules, advertising their radios as "FCC Compliant"--that is not the same as being FCC Certified.  Some of their radios may also be Part 90 Compliant, but remain so only if their firmware and software remains programmed a certain way.  Typically, if a radio is "opened up" to transmit over a full spectrum of frequencies, as many of the Chinese radios are, it essentially voids whatever FCC Certification that the radio might have.

Now, reality is that the FCC does not regularly go after people who transmit on commercial or government frequencies with non-certified radios, but that doesn't mean that they couldn't.  My suggestion would be to purchase a Part 90 Certified radio for your forestry use.  If you decide to use it for railfanning, program the railroad channels (and any other channels that you do not have authority to transmit upon ) as receive only.  As to the amateur channels, in the U.S., generally a radio must be FCC Certified under Part 97 to transmit on the amateur channels.  Many amateur radio users in the U.S. will use Part 90 Certified radios to transmit on the amateur channels, as the requirements for channel spacing, spurious emissions, etc. are actually more stringent for Part 90 radios than they are for Part 97 radios.  That said, I have seen interpretations that using Part 90 radios to transmit on the amateur channels is technically a rules violation.

In the U.S., with the exception of some government/military and the cellular telephone frequencies, it is not a Federal law violation to monitor (listen only) radio communications, as long as one is not using the information therefrom to commit a crime, or to rebroadcast the transmission over other radio channels.  A few U.S. states do not allow "scanner" type monitoring of radio channels, unless one  has an amateur radio license.  

Finally, a comment about the Tidradio TD-H8 that was mentioned in another post.  It is one of those Chinese radios that can be "opened up" to transmit outside of the amateur and/or GMRS bands.  Whatever FCC Certification it might have would likely be void at that point.  And, from my testing of two different TD-H8s that I reviewed elsewhere in this forum, its reception is mediocre, at best; it's scanning speed is glacially slow; and its battery recharge time is abysmally slow--typically taking 8-14 hours or more.  Read  my reviews of some other radios that are potentially better choices.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/06/24 18:01 by WW.

Thanks for the information. It helps a lot. I think I will just use my old icom 2 metre/440 radio for amateur radio use and get a separate radio for travel scanning and forest roads use
As far as transmitting on the forestry road channels it is actually legally required to both monitor and transmit announcing your position and intentions. Beats getting run over by a log truck.

Posted from Android



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/07/24 14:31 by INTLRAILTRAVELLER.

INTLRAILTRAVELLER Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> As far as transmitting on the forestry road
> channels it is actually legally required to both
> monitor and transmit announcing your position and
> intentions. Beats getting run over by a log truck.
>
Please elaborate a bit on that interesting requirement.  How often?  Any minimum EIRP required?  Only in active logging areas, or everywhere all the time?  French and English?

You might want to look at this site.
https://two-way.ca/