Most powerful scanner/radio to buy

[Southern6482]

Hello all!

I currently have a Yaesu 2900R hooked up to 100 feet of LMR400 cable from cablexperts which goes to a Ringo Ranger II antenna that is on top of a 40 foot mast. The tip of the Ringo Ranger is around 55 feet in the air. I only listen to the railroad band, Norfolk Southern 160.950, and never broadcast. The antenna itself is largely unobstructed by trees, neighboring houses, etc.

I have experimented by hooking up my Kenwood TK290 which does improve the reception slightly on the set-up.

My question is this... What is the most powerful scanner, mobile radio, or whatever else you all would recommend for my set-up. I want something that has a large amount of power to receive. I am really, really curious to your answers.

Thanks for your time and replies!

 

[mmckenna]

Power and Receive are two things that really don't go together. What you want is a receiver with a selective and sensitive receiver. RF power output won't make a difference.

Scanners have very wide front ends and are designed to cover a wide swath of frequencies and do it acceptably (usually). An amateur radio, like your 2900, is a step up from a scanner as it's designed to work specifically on the VHF band. Even then, amateur radios are not the best receivers out there, especially once you get outside their intended area of operation. It's not surprising at all to hear that the TK290 outperformed your Yaesu 2900, that's usually what happens, and why some of us choose to use commercial radios. A good commercial radio will usually outperform scanners and amateur gear.

So, what you might want to look for is a commercial mobile radio. I've had good luck with Motorola CDM radios. An MCS2000 would be a good option, and would have enough channel space to cover the AAR frequencies. A good commercial radio with a sensitive receiver will do what you want. They are not as easy to program, but it's not impossible.

What I'd suggest, if you are really seriously into railroad monitoring is to find a Kenwood NX700, or one of the Icom iDAS radios. These radios will do the NXDN protocol that many of the railroads will be converting to over the next few years. Some already have. It'll cost you more, but might be a good long term investment.

The other thing you can do is to get rid of as much of the excess LMR400 as you can. LMR400 is good cable, but it still has loss. Reducing cable losses will help increase the amount of signal that reaches your receiver. With 100 feet of LMR 400, you are loosing about 1.5dB of signal just due to cable loss at 160MHz. This isn't a significant amount, but anything you can do to improve that, such as shortening the cable, will help a bit. Just remember that it's a whole system, the antenna, the cable and your radio. They all work together and a shortcoming in any one will affect performance.