Over the weekend I found a Railroad Astro Spectra in remarkedly good condition for $20 at a hamfest. I suspect I could have offered less but I would have felt bad about it. I figured $20 was worth the risk of a non-functional radio, it would have looked neat on a shelf in my man-cave even if it didn't work.
Right off the bat I noticed that the screws were missing from the case, I found the proper size at Home Depot and am all set on that front. I also noticed that the panel below the SO239 connector that held the 4-pin power connector for 72 and 12 volts was missing and the standard 2-pin Motorola power connector was sticking out. OK, so I thought that someone had used that to power the radio instead of digging up the proper connector.
The seller had no idea what it was. When he saw my buddy and I looking at it he asked us what we thought it was. I explained to him that it was what they called a "Clean Cab" locomotive radio, that they were of standardized construction so that any manufacturer's radio would slot right it if needed. He said it was left over when his dad died, he worked as a communications engineer for a couple electronics firms but none were involved in railroads as far as he knew. How and why his dad had this radio was a mystery. It had been in his garage for years.
There are no property tags, engravings or other markings for any railroads on the radio at all. The display screen protector was still present but one can see evidence of age.
When I got it home I connected it to power and it came on normally. I connected it to an antenna in my attic and it seemed to receive the local rail channels as well as the scanners. I connected it to my one outside antenna (Omni-X) thru the multicoupler and it seems to pick up every bit as good on the rail and NOAA weather channels as the scanners.
To help avoid accidentally transmitting on it I set the TX channel to one of the WX channels which is automatically locked out for transmit. I also have it on a separate antenna so that if I do accidentally press a the PTT, DISP or a number (DTMF) button while on a RR channel for TX I won't blow up a multicoupler.
For now I will use it to monitor my local railroad channel. If I ever get access to a DOS computer with the proper low-power Spectra cable, RIB and the RSS I might put some 2M channels in it or reprogram the rail channels with no TX or change the TX to some innocuous frequency if possible. I used to have all that but sold it with the last of the radios I had that used them.
For the power I replaced the 2-pin Moto plug with PowerPoles and added a power switch. I have it in my shack connected to my main power supply and I usually leave that n overnight as the scanners log activity. Since the RRS lacks a power switch (it is on all the time when power is applied) and the lowest volume level is still loud enough to be heard from the bedroom this allows me to turn it off at night and leave the scanners running.
While capable of digital and trunking it appears this radio is not flashed for either. Back in 2006 when this radio was built Moto was still pushing Astro digital for the railroads which eventually went with NXDN. If they ever do make the switch to NXDN I will end up with a 20 pound doorstop but for now it is a cool way to listen to my local railroad. Since it lacks a scan feature it just sits on my local Road channel and frees up the scanner I used to use for that so I can use that for other channels.
It does however do narrowband on the rail channels, Channels 001-097 are the wide band channels and 101-197 are narrowband. 201-207 are the NOA WX channels. They make for an easy way to check the RX sensitivity!
For $20 I think I found a great toy. Even if it turned out not to work it would be a neat shelf display but since it does work so well it will be a useful piece in my shack.
Right off the bat I noticed that the screws were missing from the case, I found the proper size at Home Depot and am all set on that front. I also noticed that the panel below the SO239 connector that held the 4-pin power connector for 72 and 12 volts was missing and the standard 2-pin Motorola power connector was sticking out. OK, so I thought that someone had used that to power the radio instead of digging up the proper connector.
The seller had no idea what it was. When he saw my buddy and I looking at it he asked us what we thought it was. I explained to him that it was what they called a "Clean Cab" locomotive radio, that they were of standardized construction so that any manufacturer's radio would slot right it if needed. He said it was left over when his dad died, he worked as a communications engineer for a couple electronics firms but none were involved in railroads as far as he knew. How and why his dad had this radio was a mystery. It had been in his garage for years.
There are no property tags, engravings or other markings for any railroads on the radio at all. The display screen protector was still present but one can see evidence of age.
When I got it home I connected it to power and it came on normally. I connected it to an antenna in my attic and it seemed to receive the local rail channels as well as the scanners. I connected it to my one outside antenna (Omni-X) thru the multicoupler and it seems to pick up every bit as good on the rail and NOAA weather channels as the scanners.
To help avoid accidentally transmitting on it I set the TX channel to one of the WX channels which is automatically locked out for transmit. I also have it on a separate antenna so that if I do accidentally press a the PTT, DISP or a number (DTMF) button while on a RR channel for TX I won't blow up a multicoupler.
For now I will use it to monitor my local railroad channel. If I ever get access to a DOS computer with the proper low-power Spectra cable, RIB and the RSS I might put some 2M channels in it or reprogram the rail channels with no TX or change the TX to some innocuous frequency if possible. I used to have all that but sold it with the last of the radios I had that used them.
For the power I replaced the 2-pin Moto plug with PowerPoles and added a power switch. I have it in my shack connected to my main power supply and I usually leave that n overnight as the scanners log activity. Since the RRS lacks a power switch (it is on all the time when power is applied) and the lowest volume level is still loud enough to be heard from the bedroom this allows me to turn it off at night and leave the scanners running.
While capable of digital and trunking it appears this radio is not flashed for either. Back in 2006 when this radio was built Moto was still pushing Astro digital for the railroads which eventually went with NXDN. If they ever do make the switch to NXDN I will end up with a 20 pound doorstop but for now it is a cool way to listen to my local railroad. Since it lacks a scan feature it just sits on my local Road channel and frees up the scanner I used to use for that so I can use that for other channels.
It does however do narrowband on the rail channels, Channels 001-097 are the wide band channels and 101-197 are narrowband. 201-207 are the NOA WX channels. They make for an easy way to check the RX sensitivity!
For $20 I think I found a great toy. Even if it turned out not to work it would be a neat shelf display but since it does work so well it will be a useful piece in my shack.
