Aerotron Clean Cab Radio

[top13]

Hi all, Is there a way to program my old Aerotron. I would like to enable scanning if possible and reprogram channels 1-7 with local frequencies.

Thanks, Chris

 

[cbehr91]

I'm almost certain there is no way to get any locomotive radio to scan.

 

[wa8pyr]

Hi all, Is there a way to program my old Aerotron. I would like to enable scanning if possible and reprogram channels 1-7 with local frequencies.

None of the clean cab radios I'm familiar with allow reprogramming of the preset AAR channels 01-07, but all the ones I've seen do have a "bank" of channels which can be pre-programmed for specific frequency and squelch. Of course, that presumes the radio has that capability; don't know if your Aerotron is one of them.

Then you've got the issue of getting hold of programming cables and software; not an easy task.

You may be better off dedicating it to monitoring a specific railroad channel, and impressing your friends. I used to have a Conrail radio made by Wabco; four channel crystal model in a clean cab-sized housing, but connected to a Ringo Ranger on the roof of my house I could hear Conrail for many miles in any direction (this was back in the day when all of the local Conrail lines in my area were on 160.800, their channel 1). Wish I still had it, but I donated it to a railroad museum.

 

[top13]

None of the clean cab radios I'm familiar with allow reprogramming of the preset AAR channels 01-07, but all the ones I've seen do have a "bank" of channels which can be pre-programmed for specific frequency and squelch. Of course, that presumes the radio has that capability; don't know if your Aerotron is one of them.

Then you've got the issue of getting hold of programming cables and software; not an easy task.

You may be better off dedicating it to monitoring a specific railroad channel, and impressing your friends. I used to have a Conrail radio made by Wabco; four channel crystal model in a clean cab-sized housing, but connected to a Ringo Ranger on the roof of my house I could hear Conrail for many miles in any direction (this was back in the day when all of the local Conrail lines in my area were on 160.800, their channel 1). Wish I still had it, but I donated it to a railroad museum.

Thanks for the info. This was just a thought. No problem leaving it the way it is. It is old and receives great. I run a lot of antiques, LOL

 

[WPXS472]

None of the clean cab radios I'm familiar with allow reprogramming of the preset AAR channels 01-07, but all the ones I've seen do have a "bank" of channels which can be pre-programmed for specific frequency and squelch. Of course, that presumes the radio has that capability; don't know if your Aerotron is one of them.

Then you've got the issue of getting hold of programming cables and software; not an easy task.

You may be better off dedicating it to monitoring a specific railroad channel, and impressing your friends. I used to have a Conrail radio made by Wabco; four channel crystal model in a clean cab-sized housing, but connected to a Ringo Ranger on the roof of my house I could hear Conrail for many miles in any direction (this was back in the day when all of the local Conrail lines in my area were on 160.800, their channel 1). Wish I still had it, but I donated it to a railroad museum.

I had a few WABCOs back in the day. The receiver was really first rate. I never really cared for the transmitter. I liked the modular design concept.

 

[N9JIG]

I used to have a Conrail radio made by Wabco; four channel crystal model in a clean cab-sized housing, but connected to a Ringo Ranger on the roof of my house I could hear Conrail for many miles in any direction (this was back in the day when all of the local Conrail lines in my area were on 160.800, their channel 1). Wish I still had it, but I donated it to a railroad museum.

I have a friend who used to have a CC Motorola Railroad Spectra connected to a VHF antenna 120+ feet up the tower and he could hear the local regional railroad dispatch on towers more than 100 miles away as well as other co-channel users from even farther when conditions were up. It was a remarkable receiver for sure!

 

[chrismol1]

I suppose when you have a radio built for 1-2 MHz of spectrum, they can get really hot with the filtering and tuning. I'd imagine its like the crystals days when a radio was dug into and made hot for those few crystals. Tho I do not have experience with that

 

[WPXS472]

The WABCO receiver was somewhat typical of others of that vintage like the GE MASTRII, and Motorola Micor. It had a 5 resonator preselector that was probably only a MHZ or so wide, single conversion, a very good crystal filter. All this made for a receiver with good sensitivity, excellent selectivity, and good strong signal handling performance. That kind of design has pretty much gone away in mobiles because of the need for a wide frequency coverage, and those crystal filters were pretty expensive. You still see it in repeaters today where a premium is placed on performance at a single frequency. Modern mobile designs actually do quite well. Some have varactor tuned filters that give excellent large signal performance, and more modern ICs perform the mixing, IF and detection functions rather well. Some even do a direct downconversion to digital and do everything else with DSP. The world has changed, and with it, radio design philosophy. I hate to say it, but I miss the old stuff.

 

[merlin]

Last Aerotron I saw was crystal control. Ones with separate head, they do make a scanning control head but haven't seen one in decades.
Newer radios allowed 16 channels programmed but takes some special programming cables and such for the X2112 eeprom.