NXDN Digital Railroad Comms Demo - NS Norris Yard, Irondale, AL

[alabamarailfan]

For anyone interested, this is the first railroad NXDN comms I have picked up so far using the Whistler TRX-2 scanner. I only found one channel in use in the busy Birmingham, AL area and it appears to be Norfolk Southern car-men/repair truck in Norris Yard in Irondale, AL.

This video shows both what NXDN sounds like on an analog scanner and how the NXDN decode is on the Whistler.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlEadey0axY&t=66s

 

[cbehr91]

That sounds better than I thought it would. Hopefully the railroads set up their NXDN for common listening or whatever the industry term is, rather than only allowing their radios to monitor.

 

[wa8pyr]

For anyone interested, this is the first railroad NXDN comms I have picked up so far using the Whistler TRX-2 scanner. I only found one channel in use in the busy Birmingham, AL area and it appears to be Norfolk Southern car-men/repair truck in Norris Yard in Irondale, AL.

I was up at Bellevue, OH yesterday and discovered 160.7325 in use NXDN with my TRX-1. Interestingly, it appeared to be car inspectors there also.

Once I got the manual programming figured out it actually sounded pretty good.

 

[alabamarailfan]

Hey Folks, wanted to give a quick update on the Whistler TRX-2. After noticing the radio seemed strangely quiet the last couple of times through downtown Birmingham, AL, I decided to add a second radio, a Motorola Maxtrac, to test reception downtown (RF dense area).

It appears that the Whistler is going pretty deaf downtown unless something is really close. I was getting plenty of railroad voice comms on the Maxtrac but nothing on the Whistler. I even tried turning on the attenuation in the TRX-2 but still heard nothing.

Now, once we got out of downtown and out of the RF dense area, the Whistler picked up darn near as good as the Maxtrac. I am kind of disappointed in this, though. I know the radio has a hot front end but I hate to say that it appears to be overloaded in RF dense areas. More testing to come but wanted to mention this to anyone interested.

 

[cbehr91]

Appreciate the update. That's both good and bad. The good is that the Whistler is, as you claim, nearly as sensitive as the Maxtrac, which is one of the best receivers for the rail band. The bad, the desense in urban areas, which plagues many scanners. Shame a $500 scanner can't do better.