Looking for a good Railroad Radio.

Status
Not open for further replies.

Allan_Love_Jr

Member
Joined
Dec 4, 2005
Messages
884
Location
Arlington, Nebraska
I am looking for some info. I want to monitor the Railroad band other than a stupid Radio Shack Scanner connected to my outside Antenna. Are there any Radio's out there that I can buy over the internet? NO Radio Shacks. Any Web sites? Thanks.
 

Grog

Completely Banned for the Greater Good
Banned
Joined
Dec 19, 2002
Messages
2,959
Location
West of Charlotte NC
Ha, those are usually $120 on several ham dealer sites, gotta love egay. That's a good idea though, or one of the handheld amateur band radios.

If you only have RR freqs in there, you really don't need to unplug the mic as it won't transmit there but then again it's sorta goofy to have the mic getting in the way if you don't need it :D
 

Nasby

Member
Joined
Apr 4, 2004
Messages
2,631
Location
Ohio
Get either the Yaesu / Vertex VX-150 or the Icom IC-V8. Either is less than $120.00 and includes charger, battery, etc. They can be purchased from Gigaparts, Ham Radio Outlet, etc. They are awesome on the railroad bands and will blow away the reception of a scanner. Attach a Diamond RH77CA antenna and you can't do any better!!
 

Grog

Completely Banned for the Greater Good
Banned
Joined
Dec 19, 2002
Messages
2,959
Location
West of Charlotte NC
snjct2000 said:
Get either the Yaesu / Vertex VX-150 or the Icom IC-V8


At this price point, I would suggest the VX170, newer, almost the same price as the 150, bigger capacity nimh battery (vs nicad) and a larger display (although the 150 slanted top display is neat if you have it on your belt a lot). It's also very waterproof in case something bad happens :lol:
 

Allan_Love_Jr

Member
Joined
Dec 4, 2005
Messages
884
Location
Arlington, Nebraska
snjct2000 said:
Get either the Yaesu / Vertex VX-150 or the Icom IC-V8. Either is less than $120.00 and includes charger, battery, etc. They can be purchased from Gigaparts, Ham Radio Outlet, etc. They are awesome on the railroad bands and will blow away the reception of a scanner. Attach a Diamond RH77CA antenna and you can't do any better!!
Send me the link.
 

burner50

The Third Variable
Database Admin
Joined
Dec 24, 2004
Messages
2,231
Location
NC Iowa
prcguy said:
There is nothing like monitoring RR traffic with a Motorola Spectra Clean Cab radio. They show up for sale on Epay and some ham radio sites fairly often.
prcguy


good luck finding a 74VDC Power source to make it work ;)


Plus they're pretty big for a mobile mount...
 
Last edited:

Grog

Completely Banned for the Greater Good
Banned
Joined
Dec 19, 2002
Messages
2,959
Location
West of Charlotte NC
burner50 said:
Plus they're pretty big for a mobile mount...


It'd fit in a bunch of pickups really well :D How about this?


For those who want a railroad spectra for listening, well motorola has been listening. You all know motorola is wanting controlling interest in a certain company, well here is the secret plans I was able to smuggle out of their already built Combined Resourse Applications Prototype center.

What's modern, rugged, and has that clean cab look?











Copyofftm10e-1.jpg
 
Last edited:

Nasby

Member
Joined
Apr 4, 2004
Messages
2,631
Location
Ohio
Those clean cab things don't scan though do they? Pretty much useless if they don't scan.
 

ind224

Member
Joined
Oct 30, 2004
Messages
761
Location
Indianapolis
Y the hate for an RS? Old school 43, 2006, 2045 etc are awesome. Just wanted to know the reason. Now I did try some last minute race programming of a Pro 95 and that really put me close to the edge not intuitive at all.
 

Radio99

Member
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Dec 19, 2002
Messages
88
Location
NW Chicago Suburbs
Railroad Spectra

I am by no means an expert but for durability and audio characteristics, there is nothing like a railroad Spectra for monitoring. They are capable of operation off of 12 OR 72 volts DC. They do not scan and due to its size they are basically best suited for listening at home. They are quite heavy (coming in at around 19 pounds) but would probably take a direct hit from a surface-to-air missile and keep working. Most of the ones available on the open market (Ebay, etc) are pretty beat up unless you can come across one from a private coach car. They have all 97 railroad frequencies pre-programmed in them. There is currently one up on Ebay. If you go that route, watch out for the power plug and make sure you wire it correctly for the voltage you are using.
 

Paulsan

Member
Joined
Oct 21, 2007
Messages
223
Location
York PA
"but would probably take a direct hit from a surface-to-air missile and keep working."

Do they fly too?

8^D
 

W4KRR

Member
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Apr 1, 2001
Messages
3,434
Location
Coconut Creek
Another vote here for the Yaesu VX-170. They're a nice compact size, they are metal not plastic, and are waterproof, plus they have enough memory capacity to hold all the AAR railroad frequencies and then some. And they will scan. And you can get aftermarket accessories like earphones, desktop drop-in chargers, etc. And if you have a ham license, you can use it to transmit on the two meter band.
 
Last edited:

icom1020

Member
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Jul 19, 2004
Messages
1,039
I think the VX models are pretty good too for a trackside radio. I recently switched to a Motorola MTS2000 as ham rigs just dont cut it on speeder runs. I was getting intermod on AAR09 from a nearby pager and finally decided this wouldn't do. A lot of them have Spectras installed but a few of them have ham rigs that are modified for 151.625 in which there is a night and day difference between the two types.
 

jleverin

Member
Joined
Oct 4, 2007
Messages
141
I'm wondering what the problem here is. I was told the VX-150 was a good one for picking up rail transmissions. There is a BNSF rail line that runs justs a few blocks from my house, lots of rail traffic.(MAYBE a quarter mile) There is also the Railroad Transportation Test Center here where they supposedly test all kinds of rail equipment just a few miles outside of town. I haven't been able to pick up anything rail related in a long time on anything, I had a RS Pro-82 scanner that intially I picked up a few things on but that stopped and can get nothing on the VX 150. Could it possibly be that everything has gone digital or is it just encrypted so people can't listen in anymore. Have been hoping to get a RS Pro 96 to see what else I can pick up but haven't been able to raise the money for that yet. People keep talking about what they are hearing from the rail lines but I can't seem to make anything work. What am I doing wrong? Maybe I need an antenna?
 

W4KRR

Member
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Apr 1, 2001
Messages
3,434
Location
Coconut Creek
jleverin said:
I'm wondering what the problem here is. I was told the VX-150 was a good one for picking up rail transmissions. There is a BNSF rail line that runs justs a few blocks from my house, lots of rail traffic.(MAYBE a quarter mile) There is also the Railroad Transportation Test Center here where they supposedly test all kinds of rail equipment just a few miles outside of town. I haven't been able to pick up anything rail related in a long time on anything, I had a RS Pro-82 scanner that intially I picked up a few things on but that stopped and can get nothing on the VX 150. Could it possibly be that everything has gone digital or is it just encrypted so people can't listen in anymore. Have been hoping to get a RS Pro 96 to see what else I can pick up but haven't been able to raise the money for that yet. People keep talking about what they are hearing from the rail lines but I can't seem to make anything work. What am I doing wrong? Maybe I need an antenna?

Maybe they changed frequencies? If the VX-150 isn't picking up anything, then another radio isn't going to make any difference. Maybe an outside antenna (and making sure you have the correct frequencies) would help.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top