Scanner / Radio Recommendations ?

[ssmith1627]

Hoping to find something better than the average Radio Shack scanner for my railfanning trips.   Can you guys give some recommendations on what to look for ?   

I need to replace the radio in my vehicle anyway.......are there radios out there that can receive the range we're looking for for "railroad" purposes as well as normal AM/FM signal ranges ?  Or would it have to be two separate radios for that ?    It's possible that I'd have room in the dash for both -- one installed above the other.  Trying to see what all is out there.

Also, if it's time to consider the changes that are coming where they're going to bunch the signals closer together. 

As far as handheld -- these seem to get good reviews:
http://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/ht/5270.html

Appreciate any feedback you can offer !   

Steve

[JCagle]

I hear lots of good things about the Yaesu models. I havennever owned one but they seem to be a good value for the price.

I think you are looking in the right area by going with a 2m models over a standard scanner. A 2m is built for the band and will receive better. It also opens you up to the possibility of becoming a licensed Ham operator should you desire in the future.

There are several good sites out there to check out for price comparisons like the site you linked to and ham radio outlet and several others.

As for a stand alone in dash with am/fm and the 2m band I am not aware of anything like that available, and if there was i would think it would get a little cumbersome because you would have to choose between music and monitoring the radio.  You also may want to look into getting a magnet mount 2m antenna to attach to your handheld when you are using it in the car to increase the reception over the duckey that is on the radio. It looks like you would have to buy the connector for 6 bucks to do that. I would also recommend getting the reference card as well since it is a lot easier to carry than the owner's manual.

[Ptrainman]

I have an Icom IC-V82, it does pretty good other than it cuts in and out sometimes while my scanner right beside it keeps steady.

[Conrail Tweety]

I really like the Yaesu VX-7R. It is a rugged, mil-spec, waterproof HT.
http://www.yaesu.com/indexVS.cfm?cmd=DisplayProducts&ProdCatID=111&encProdID=8D3254BFC69FB172D78647DC56EFB0E9&DivisionID=65&isArchived=0
http://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/ht/0777.html
The body is about the size of a pack of cigarettes. It will easily fit into a shirt pocket making it easier to hear than if carried down on your belt. It will run all day on a charge when used for receive only (no transmit).

Squelch is set by keyboard instead of a knob. Upon receiving a weak signal that won't keep the squelch open, holding the MON button located above the PTT will open the squelch.

It receives AAR frequencies better than any scanner I've ever used.

The channels can be programmed with alpha-numeric labels.

The coaxial knob on the upper-right, the top-inner knob is volume, and the lower-ring knob is the channel dial. A pet peeve of mine is: the dial can be spun by accident or casual contact, which will change the channel without your knowledge. Enabling the Lock command will deactivate the dial. Any combo of dial, keys, and PTT can be locked.

By design, this radio will not transmit while the wall-charger cord is plugged in, unlike most other radios.

The magnesium case gets very hot when transmitting at high power. On a hot day, this can cause the LCD to go black until the unit cools down.

Scan rate is around 15 channels per second, and slower if decoding DCS. Much slower than a true scanner, but this is a radio with scanning capability. Only one memory bank can be scanned at a time.

The finish on the black model is more durable than the silver model.

The factory antenna is a multi-piece stack that can be assembled in different configurations for optimal performance at a chosen frequency. When using the belt clip and the longest antenna stack, the radio can become top-heavy and accidentally rotate out of the clip. The screw for the clip button can work loose and needs to be checked periodically.

There is a beep at the top of every hour, but no audible warning as the battery goes dead.

The compact waterproof speaker compromises the audio. After a large temperature change, there can be a pressure differential between the inside and outside of the radio. Removing and reinstalling the battery will equalize the pressure and improve the speaker sound.

There are higher capacity batteries available that are thicker front-to-back. The radio won't fit into a drop-in charger while this type battery is attached, eliminating any possibility of using the radio and drop-in charger at the same time. The larger battery can be only be charged in the desktop charger after it is removed from the radio. Smaller batteries that don't extend rearward can be charged in the drop-in charger while still attached to the radio.

The volume level is stepped. The steps are a bit too coarse on the low end.

The LCD backlight is red. This color is easy on the eyes in low-light conditions.

The freely available "Commander" software simplifies programming.

On/Off can be scheduled for time-of-day. This is a handy feature to sync the radio to your sleep schedule.

Dennis

[E.M. Bell]

My personal opinion, stay away from consumer grade scanners. They are designed to cover such a wide swath of spectrum, and that is their downfall. They usually have very poor performance, a wide open front end that will let ANYTHING in (intermod) and are not built to take much abuse..

My first recommendation...commercial gear. Go looking on Ebay or other similar places and find good used (and usually inexpensive, comparatively speaking) commercial gear that is specifically designed to monitor and receive in the 160mgz area. I prefer (and yes..I said it) GE over Motorola...GE makes a Dam fine radio (locomotives, not so much) that have hot receivers and can take about any punishment you can dish out short of using one for a wheel chock. Downfalls for any of the brands here...If you get a HT, the batteries will be rather expensive, and almost nothing you will find is user programmable. You will have to go to a radi shop (or know someone) who has the right programing cables and software. 

My second recommendation (and probably the most practical for you)  is the ham gear others have already mentioned. I have several Yaesu models, both mobile and HT's They do a very good job, are usually rugged and dependable. I dont have any of the newer stuff, so I cant really compare them, but the older ones I have have taken a beating and still work great.

Also, dont skimp on the antenna. Bite the bulllet, drill a hole in your ride and put a permanent mount antenna on, or at the very least a good lip mount. Mag mounts do work, but not near as well (grounding issues, cheaper coax ect)

What ever you get, dont forget about the new channel spacing and narrow banding issues that are going to start happening in 2011. Make sure what ever you get can handle the odd channel splits..

[Michael Knight]

What ever you get, dont forget about the new channel spacing and narrow banding issues that are going to start happening in 2011. Make sure what ever you get can handle the odd channel splits..

Excellent topic discussion here, gentlemen. With the pending changes in bands, it is a great time to be thinking about upgrading to the next better thing as far as radio receivers are concerned.

E.M., and other Ham experts, in layman's terms, what kind of specifications should a scanner or other type of radio that's to be used to receive railroad transmissions have? What band steps, etc., should the scanner have to work optimally when the narrowbanding occurs?

[Ptrainman]

In reference to my comment above about the IC-V82 signal/audio cutting in and out, any one know what is causing it or how to fix it.

[E.M. Bell]

In reference to my comment above about the IC-V82 signal/audio cutting in and out, any one know what is causing it or how to fix it.

I have seen this on some of my own stuff a few times. Question...does it do it in scan, or just when you are locked on one channel?? And IF you are scanning, do you have "priority" channel programed in? If the answer to the priority channel is NO, do you have anouther radio on and scanning, in close proximity to the one that is cutting out??

Mr. Knight...The original AAR railroad radio band has a spacing of 25 kHz for it's channels. Modern technology allows channels to be spaced much closer together now, which creates more channels in a much smaller amount of radio spectrum. The FCC mandates that new radio systems go from 25 kHz channels to smaller 12.5 kHz channels by 2013 (step spacing will go from 15 kHz to 7.5 kHz). The rail industry itself created it's own mandate to make this happen by July, 2010.

for example, the standard NS road channel in former Southern territories is 160.950. Under the new band plan, this will change to 160.9575. MOST any radio that is more than 10 years old or so "should" be able to handle the new KHz split BUT the kicker is that the way I understand this, the new channels will be in effect "narrow band" which the new Radios the RR's are starting to use are capable of handling. For the casual listener like us, it will mean you will be able to hear the transmissions (if you have the new channels) BUT the volume will be much much lower, and the signal is in a sense being "squeezed" in laymans terms.  The upside to this, as we see in ham radio, is that the propagation of a more narrow signal "should" be a little better (but that depends on many...many...many...many...small variables that effect FM propagation)

The new band plan is only the FIRST step in the FFC's mandate to get the most bang for the buck out of what really is a limited spectrum of radio frequencies. The Second part of the plan talks about moving on down to a 6.25 kHz standard split..and right now there are not a lot of radios out there that will do that. Luckily, the target date for that date is around 2018..and that will surely change just like phase 1 did.

The big (HUGE) change will be when (not if) they go digital. This is being worked on, but in my opinion is a long way off. Digital protocols change and change and change, and each radio manufacture has its own style. Until they settle on ONE standard encryption, they wont be able to implement that nation wide.  

For folks like me who depend on listening to the radio to get info while railfanning, this will be more of a nuisance for now than anything, and wont happen overnight. When you look at the just how many radios a RR has (engines, hand helds, mobile for vehicles, base stations ect), and the fact the power and trains are swapped back and forth all the time, that one RR may operate over another...it will be a huge job to get everyone on the same page at the same time...

And please, dont take everything I am saying as gospel, Radio is just another expensive hobby of mine (been a amateur operator going on 15 years now) and I do not profess to be a expert in the this...I only know what I have read and interpreted from the techno-gibberish the FCC is so good at spewing out..


Sorry to hi-jack your thread steve!!

[JCagle]

Most of the newer models of ham gear have the capability to be switched over to the narrow band fairly easily. I bought a Kenwood mobile unit last year and changing it to narrow band mode is an easy setting change. By having the narrow band mode it will let it hit the new splits dead on. I would check and make sure anything you get new has that feature since it has become pretty common.

One of the drawbacks I can see to getting used commercial gear is the fact that it may not have all the features for the new changes. If the seller on Ebay or wherever doesn't know much about radios except for the fact that some guy told him he could get 80 bucks a piece for them it may be harder to track down without going back to find old specifications from the manufacturer.

[ssmith1627]

Not a hijack at all, EM.   This is very interesting and exactly what I need to be reading.   Much appreciated everyone.

I have one of the Railcom mag-mount antennas.  That's a huge improvement over the rubber duck.  The only issue I have with permanently mounting on the roof of my XTerra is that when I leave it up there now, it bangs along at every fast food drive-thru.   

I'm really hoping to find a better radio altogether.  The absolute worst problem I have right now with the scanner is weather radio.   Whenever I'm close to one of those signals, it will bleed into every frequency I try to listen to.   It's never close to be a strong signal but it will cut in and out -- that recorded weather broadcast that just simply repeats.  It's not one freq that I can simply lock out -- it's all of them.   I believe it was Somerset that it happened most recently but I've had the same problem in other locations.  It's maddening and makes the scanner pretty much worthless on the freq's that I want to listen on.

Steve

[billworsham]

You should see Steve when he's mad... >  lol!

[Ptrainman]

In reference to my comment above about the IC-V82 signal/audio cutting in and out, any one know what is causing it or how to fix it.

I have seen this on some of my own stuff a few times. Question...does it do it in scan, or just when you are locked on one channel?? And IF you are scanning, do you have "priority" channel programed in? If the answer to the priority channel is NO, do you have anouther radio on and scanning, in close proximity to the one that is cutting out??

It does it if it is on a tables beside another raido or on my side near the tracks and it is not on scan it is on one ch. Normally AAR 72.

[E.M. Bell]

It does it if it is on a tables beside another raido or on my side near the tracks and it is not on scan it is on one ch. Normally AAR 72.
[/quote]


Being in close proximity to another radio that is (or may not be) scanning can cause what you described, more so if that other radio is a scanner. A lot of radios can produce a little RF output from the receiver if they some problem that may cause the front end to "drift" a little. That spurious signal can, and will, cause other radios to "cut out". A lot of that may depend on a certain freq that is being listened to or scanned through...

[ssmith1627]

Trying to do some more reading on this topic tonight so I can finally make a decision on a radio.

This is a VERY basic question......so please be gentle.....I really just don't know.   EM -- you said the "steps" between freq's would go from 15 KHz down to 7.5.   But when I look at the specs for the Yaseu FT-270R, it says the steps are as below:
Channel Steps:  5/10/12.5/15/20/25/50 & 100 kHz 
http://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/ht/5270spec.html

I see 15 in there but I don't see 7.5.   

The Yaseu VX-7R is similar:
Channel Steps:  5/9/10/12.5/15/20/25/50/100 kHz 

Am I just not understanding it right ?  Will these radios work with the new channel steps ? 

Steve