Whistler TRX 1

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downsrep

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Has anyone had issues with Whistler TRX-1 not picking up railroad frequencies well? I was at a station with it and couldn’t pick up the detector or traffic down the line. My Radio Shack Pro-96 picked up traffic fine in same location. Is this a scanner issue?
 

alabamarailfan

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@downsrep ,
I have had the mobile version, the TRX-2 for a few years and indeed, the VHF reception is horrible and my main use was for railroad frequencies. In fact, I have had it go completely deaf in higher RF areas such as dense populations (where lots of railroads are). I went so far as to install a Motorola M1225 just for railroad frequencies and I verified that the Motorola still picked up fine even when the TRX-2 went deaf.

A fellow radio enthusiast had read somewhere that perhaps Whistler didn't do as good as job on the VHF front end filtering as they did for UHF and up since this is where many users are making use of the radio.

Here is the information I shared with him (I can share the photos if you like but you can get the idea from the text):

Based on that suggestion, I have done some experimenting on the TRX-2 radio a few months ago and come up with some interesting results. I have attached a couple photos that show what I am talking about. I found that, on the railroad band, even with no signal coming in, I was seeing 4 bars of just noise. When I dropped down to 151 MHz, it was up to a full 5 bars of noise. However, when I checked a channel on UHF, quiet as a mouse. All three photos are of the scanner paused with no audio being received. No wonder I had to run the squelch up to 10 - 11 just to shut the noise off on the VHF band.

As another experiment, I did a sweep from 150 MHz going up and looking at the S-meter, even where there were no transmissions. It stayed noisy well above 170 MHz. It didn't start quieting down until I got over about 250 MHz. Once over 300 MHz, it really got quieter and by the time I got to 400 MHz, the bars were gone. That pretty much proves the theory that you have about the filters. I guess they indeed figure that most people who are purchasing these radios are using them for UHF and up. Of course, 700 - 800 MHz was quiet also.


I love the detachable head on the TRX-2 but the performance at VHF frequencies, where I would like to listen most is so poor but I plan to sell the radio and go back to a Uniden for general scanning. I have been playing with a BCD436HP and it seems to receive fine on the railroad frequencies.

Wish I had better information to share with you but the performance for me on the railroad frequencies was also quite poor.
Good luck with your radios!
 

alabamarailfan

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For information, here are the three images of the testing I did with the TRX-2 and the amount of noise that registered on the signal meter even when no signal was being received. Because of this, I have had to turn the squelch up to between 10 - 12 just to cut out that noise on the VHF band. I can lower it significantly if only monitoring UHF and up.

20191010_170509.jpg 20191010_170849.jpg 20191010_171011.jpg

Hope this information helps!
 

kruser

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GRE designed radios are well known for poor filtering. Especially from signals from FM Radio Broadcast towers.
I had the exact same with all my GRE designs and even though the area FM stations are 10+ miles away, I still needed an FM band filter such as the one offered by PAR Electronics.
That filter does wonder and will usually knock those ghost signals down to nothing for the VHF band.

Other problems affecting the rail band can be VHF Paging signals. They are often located on top of are near a cluster of hospitals. The paging signals will also wreak havoc with the GRE designs. (The TRX series are GRE designs as are several models branded with the RadioShack name.).
The common paging signals that affect VHF on the GRE designs fall in the 152.xxx MHz range as well as the 158.xxx range.
If you have another radio can can search 152 to 153 and 158 to 159, find out which band or both have high power paging signals and purchase the appropriate filter(s) from PAR.

One last common culprit can be from the NOAA WX broadcasts in the 162.xxx range. If you are within a few miles of a NOAA transmitter, a NOAA WX filter may also help.

The FM Broadcast filter will often take care of a lot of the problems by itself but if you are near hospitals, one or both of the VHF paging band filters may also be needed.
One must remember that FM Broadcast stations can run 100,000 watts of power. Way more than enough to desense or overload the front end in poorly designed receivers.

These filters usually turn a deaf GRE design into a well working radio.

Filter links below.


PAR Electronics | Filters for the commercial 2 way market, MATV, FM broadcast, laboratory, marine industry, amateur radio, scanner and short wave listening enthusiasts Us the VHFSYM152HT for 152 MHz Paging, The VHFSYM158HT for 158 MHz paging and the VHFSYM162HT for NOAA WX band. For FM Broadcast stations, the VHF-FM filter is the one.
 

Ubbe

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I think all who has TRX scanners experiance the same thing with the poor VHF performance. The only constant signals I have in VHF are FM broadcast and I use a filter for that. It still needs the SQ to be cranked up compared to UHF which then will give problem to receive weak signals also in UHF. It's better to exclude the whole VHF band and let another scanner deal with that.

When I measure my TRX-2 it uses the same filter for 75-198MHz, if you have the bandplan set to receive 50-87MHz, while Uniden has one 108-137MHz and another filter for 137-220MHz.

/Ubbe
 

Swipesy

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I think all who has TRX scanners experiance the same thing with the poor VHF performance.
/Ubbe

I would expand your statement to all GRE PSR-500, PSR-800 and continuing on to the Whistler series are all poor performers on the Railroad frequencies. I use a Uniden BC125AT for rail listening.
 

downsrep

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I wish I would have known this before I bought the scanner. Spent a lot of money and thought it was going to be great. I was excited about just putting in the county or city and having frequencies inputted. I take it Uniden would be the way to go then since Radio Shack is no more?
 

rayvelcoro

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To put if briefly, I use my BC125 for general analog monitoring and my TRX-1 primarily for digital monitoring. That is what they're good for respectively.
 

Wackyracer

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I wish I would have known this before I bought the scanner. Spent a lot of money and thought it was going to be great. I was excited about just putting in the county or city and having frequencies inputted. I take it Uniden would be the way to go then since Radio Shack is no more?
Get rid of the stock antenna and get a antenna that is designed for the frequency range you want to monitor most,
 

Machria

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Agreed! Change the ANTENNA. I use my TRX scanner for VHF about 80% of the time. I do NOT have any issues at all with it. I have a Uniden BCD396xt and they received pretty much identically in the VHF band. There are other places where they differ, VHF is not one of them. I'm not sure what the others who commented are doing..... ?
 

jaspence

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Until they moved to the 800 MHz statewide system, I monitored VHF that was 20 to 30 miles away. Using a dual band ham mag mount on a file cabinet worked fine, and outside the stock antenna would get the nearer stations.
 

downsrep

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I haven’t used a stock antenna on any of my scanners since I got my diamond 77 antenna. I also have a Radio Shack portable semi discone, a small one, I use inside. It’s with the diamond antenna I can’t hear a train detector on the TRX-1 yet at the same location I can pick it up on my old Radio Shack in the same location outside at a station.
 
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