Continuous carrier tones on rail freqs in IN?

Indianabrad

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Why are there continuous carrier tones on the rail freqs (160 to 162 MHz) in IN? I have been searching the rail band with an old scanner with PC control & have found the tone only channels. Can any one tell me the rail voice channels for NWI?
 

ecps92

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Do you mean Open Carrier aka Stuck Transmitter or are you referencing seeing CTCSS tones when they transmit from "Some" base stations ??

Why are there continuous carrier tones on the rail freqs (160 to 162 MHz) in IN? I have been searching the rail band with an old scanner with PC control & have found the tone only channels. Can any one tell me the rail voice channels for NWI?
 

Indianabrad

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Do you mean Open Carrier aka Stuck Transmitter
The transmitter continuously (24/7) transmits a high pitch tone sound on several rail freqs in my area. It has nothing to do w/ voice & I never hear any voice comms on the freqs. If I crank back the squelch to 35% I can make the scanner not stop on them.
 

mikegilbert

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The transmitter continuously (24/7) transmits a high pitch tone sound on several rail freqs in my area. It has nothing to do w/ voice & I never hear any voice comms on the freqs. If I crank back the squelch to 35% I can make the scanner not stop on them.

Could be RF links for a voting comparator. Voting receivers transmit a 2175Hz tone when they aren't receiving voice traffic. That tone tells the comparator to ignore that site.
 

west-pac

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It's likely local noise getting into your scanner. Start flipping breakers in your breaker box until the noise stops. If the noise doesn't stop, move the scanner to a different room, then shut off that last breaker.
 

ecps92

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OK - so an Open Carrier, what Freq(s) is this on - list them
maybe someone else can see what they hear, then we can determine if it is LOCAL to you and/or your need to begin the Circuit Breaker by Circuit Breaker power off to see if it resolves and is something in your own house.

IS this on ALL of your Radios or just One, do you also see it on SDR ??

The transmitter continuously (24/7) transmits a high pitch tone sound on several rail freqs in my area. It has nothing to do w/ voice & I never hear any voice comms on the freqs. If I crank back the squelch to 35% I can make the scanner not stop on them.
 

AK9R

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I went to the database & found all the rail freqs licensed in Jasper County, IN.
Great. However, I think you may need to manage your expectations.

Without an outside antenna, you probably aren't going to hear much railroad traffic beyond 10-20 miles. Even with an outside antenna, it's going to be a challenge. The CSX former-Monon line runs through Rensselaer, so you might hear some CSX traffic. CSX does have a small yard in Monon, 15 miles from Rensselaer, and you might hear the base station there. The TP&W runs east-west through Remington, but that's approximately 12 miles south of Rensselaer, so you won't hear much. The NS Kankakee line to the power generating plant in Wheatfield runs east-west approximately 12 miles north of you, so you won't hear much and that line will probably be abandoned after the plant switches from coal to natural gas. The busy rail lines in northwest Indiana are all 35 or more miles from you, so you just won't hear them without a high antenna.

OK, so I covered the expectations due to distance. Now, I'm going to cover the expectations due to traffic.

Train crews don't talk on the radio all the time. In fact, they rarely talk on the radio unless they are switching. First off, train crews these days consist of an engineer and a conductor and they are sitting a few feet from each other in the locomotive cab, so no need to use the radio. If the conductor needs to go "on the ground" to line a switch or check a car, the conductor will be using a 5-watt handheld radio with a compromised rubber duck antenna mounted 3-4 feet above ground and partially shielded by the conductor's body. IOW, the conductor won't be heard very far. The locomotives have 50-watt radios with unity-gain antennas mounted on the cab roof at around 16 feet, so you may hear the engineer.

A train running on the CSX line through Rensselaer will get its block authority from the dispatcher at Munster or Lafayette and may never talk to the dispatcher again until they get to the end of the line. That line does have block signals, so you may hear the engineer calling the signal status as the train approaches the signal. But, remember that that line isn't very busy. Two Amtrak trains three days a week, two CSX freight trains everyday, a CSX local everyday, plus an occasional CSX grain or ethanol train. I bet you can stand where US 231 crosses the CSX tracks in Rensselaer for 8 hours and only see one train.

Here's a pretty good list of CSX frequencies organized by the dispatcher desks in Jacksonville, Florida: CSX Dispatcher Desk Codes Scroll down the list to the RB Dispatcher in the Chicago Division. Scroll across the list to the Monon Subdivision. That will tell you the frequencies for the CSX and Amtrak trains through Rensselaer.

It's great that you want to monitor the railroad frequencies. I'm sitting here in a western suburb of Indianapolis with a radio tuned to the CSX dispatcher frequency myself. But, from a fixed location in the Rensselaer area, I don't think you are going to hear much.
 

Indianabrad

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But, from a fixed location in the Rensselaer area, I don't think you are going to hear much.
Yrs ago I had the defect detector freq here, but I don't even know that one anymore & that would be a good indication of daily train traffic, that is if it is even broadcasted in audio anymore.
 

INDY72

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Yrs ago I had the defect detector freq here, but I don't even know that one anymore & that would be a good indication of daily train traffic, that is if it is even broadcasted in audio anymore.
If you have the ROAD CH then you have the Defect Detector freq. And yes, most of the rr's still have the detectors broadcast audio on that freq. Very few if any have done away with that yet that I am aware of.
 

AK9R

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Since the whole purpose of a railroad defect detector is to alert the train crew to defects in their train, to the best of my knowledge, they all transmit on the road channel. For the CSX line through Rensselaer, road is 161.370 MHz (AAR 84) and dispatcher is 160.290 MHz (AAR 12).

BTW, looking at your signature, that Radio Shack Pro2004, if it's still working OK, would make a great railroad scanner.
 

Indianabrad

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that Radio Shack Pro2004, if it's still working OK
I use it for that, ham repeaters & other various still analogue comms. Last yr I did maintenance on it again of spray cleaning the volume pot, changing the back light again and finally doing the dimmer to light switch mod. Back in the early 90's I did the mods of crystal overclock, 100 more channels & various others, in Bill Cheek's mod books. The only issue it has it that the 9 volt regulator is bad (and drains a battery) & I have to keep a 9 volt adapter connected to it, But my scanners are on a Backup UPS, so not a prob.
 
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