Question for RailHams

[nickwilson159]

I’ve got the trifecta: buff, railroader, & have my ham ticket. Do I win a prize?? 😀

 

[dapaq2]

Any railhams own a ham repeater(s) that have been made dedicated to railham use?

 

[Mike-KC8OWL]

Add me to the list as well. Long time interest in both and I use my 2m gear to monitor the rails.

 

[dapaq2]

Are there any ham repeater owners on here that have made their repeaters available for use by rail-hams?

 

[K6CDO]

Are there any ham repeater owners on here that have made their repeaters available for use by rail-hams?

I'm working on one (UHF). Just looking for a site in the Ashland, VA area.

 

[dapaq2]

Excellent, if you manage to get your repeater installed and in operation get in contact with me via PM/DM. I would like to talk to you about it.

 

[22nineline]

I wonder if there are any DMR talkgroups on rail fans with ham tickets. Maybe on TGIF or Brandmeister. Never looked but it would be a way for us to keep connected since I'm sure most are not that close to each other

 

[ak7an]

I host a Dstar reflector on my server. Its is an XLX277, you can access it with REF, DCS, and XRF.. If there are any railfan hams who do Dstar you are welcome to use it anytime. It would be nice to see some traffic on it. Let me know which module is preferred and I can attach a label for it
73
Ed
AK7AN

 

[kg6nlw]

I wonder if there are any DMR talkgroups on rail fans with ham tickets. Maybe on TGIF or Brandmeister. Never looked but it would be a way for us to keep connected since I'm sure most are not that close to each other

There are but they're all dead TG's...No one is ever on them. Plus, who would use them in the middle of nowhere?

Regards,

-Frank C.

 

[jmp883]

I'm a railfan and I have my ham ticket. Most of the time when I'm trackside the radio in use is a scanner. There have been several occasions when I was railfanning with a friend of mine who is also a ham. We had our 2m portables with us as well as our handheld scanners. Since we were shooting photos in an area with multiple locations for good shots we used a simplex frequency to advise each other what trains were coming and where to get the best photos.

 

[AK9R]

Since we were shooting photos in an area with multiple locations for good shots we used a simplex frequency to advise each other what trains were coming and where to get the best photos.

146.490 MHz used to be the unofficial "railham" simplex frequency, though I can't say that I ever talked to any railfans on that frequency.

 

[22nineline]

There are but they're all dead TG's...No one is ever on them. Plus, who would use them in the middle of nowhere?

Regards,

-Frank C.

Okay. Not too many rail fans when you look at numbers so I guess no traffic is the norm. For me where I live I'm not near anything good any more. The street I use to live on had a track going right down the middle of the street and more tracks just a block away. But here a few grain trains will come to town during harvest but we are on the end of the line so just not much to monitor here.

 

[wa8pyr]

146.490 MHz used to be the unofficial "railham" simplex frequency, though I can't say that I ever talked to any railfans on that frequency.

I have, but pretty few and far between.

 

[N1SQB]

Add me to the list. Been loving rail monitoring almost as long as I’ve been a Ham.( 1992).

 

[scanman56]

There are but they're all dead TG's...No one is ever on them. Plus, who would use them in the middle of nowhere?

Regards,

-Frank C.

i dunno, you could call it Silence of the Hams

 

[videobruce]

you can shoot only so many GE wide cabs. In the early 2000's when I finally got a digital camera there was much more locomotive variety. Now, they really all do look alike, and driving is $$$$.

Locomotives all look the same now. Nothing worth photographing. Where was the technology back in the 60's and 70's?
Where is Penn Central when we need it now?

 

[jmp883]

All locomotives look the same....nothing worth taking pictures?? And you want Penn Central back?? Rundown locomotives in that dark Brunswick Green (black?). Railroads today are a lot more colorful. Depending on where you are you have the various heritage units to shoot. As for all locomotives looking the same today, it wasn't that much different back then. An EMD GP or SD look pretty much the same, the only major differences being 4-wheel vs. 6-wheel trucks and their overall length. Same for the GE U-Boats and ALCO's. Whether cab or hood unit, they all shared the same basic shape and configuration.

You don't say what your preferred shot is. I prefer the road trains vs. roster shots of just the locomotive. I live in northern NJ, just outside of NYC and I have a variety of locations to railfan. I also have a great variety of railroads - NS, CSX, NYS&W, NJ Transit, Metro-North, Amtrak, and a number of freight shortlines. There is always something worth shooting!

 

[videobruce]

Just like SUV's & Xovers, they all look the same.

Compared to what was available 50 years ago. Just how many ALCO's, FM's and BLW's are left? How about all the fallen flags that are unfortunately gone? The only improvements are crew comfort and energy efficiency, but neither matter visually.

As to color? I guess you like the graffiti sprayed on all the rolling stock also?

 

[dapaq2]

Discussion is starting to drift off topic. Would appreciate it if we can please try to get back to "headcount of rail-hams" and discussion about "rail-ham activity". I would like to avoid this thread becoming about debates about locomotive interest or other off topic discussion.

 

[aa0ww]

I'm always scanning my local rail frequencies (UP, Albert Lea sub) along with my local ham frequencies on my two-meter radios.