zzdiesel
Member
Can I expect to hear trains from 18 miles away? I live in Kennett, MO & the BNSF Rail Line I want to hear is in Hayti, MO. I entered it yesterday (161.385) & haven't heard anything yet.
Radio Distance With Trains
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Train communications are usually simplex VHF line of sight (LOS), limited in range by terrain and elevation.
zzdiesel
Member
Ok. Thanks for the info.
Typical train to train VHF would be ~8-15 miles max, so hearing at 18 miles would be under rare circumstances.
zzdiesel
Member
I should've mentioned I have an external Channel Master antenna about 20 ft high.
That helps, but what is the terrain between you and the tracks? Are the tracks below grade? Basically, do you have a line of sight to them?
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zzdiesel
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I live in very flatland. Hayti is straight east of me. I have a lot of tall trees fairly close.
You can use this site and punch in coordinates and antenna heights to get an idea of exact distance & RF line of site, and this site to estimate line of site radio horizon for VHF/UHF as well as a good explanation.
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DJ11DLN
Member
I have 2 lines here, one is about 2.5 miles away and I can hear a lot of traffic. The other is 8.6 miles at CPA and I just barely hear them so YMMV. If you're only interested in that one line you might consider brewing up a yagi.
AC5PS
Member
I’ve never looked into it but I was under the impression there was like a repeater system along the tracks?
No, the radio systems for train track operations are simplex, but most railroad companies have hard wire connections to multiple transmitters placed at multiple locations on their rail tracks.
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Think of them as remote base stations as opposed to a repeater. On the dispatcher's console they can select a base they want to talk on or simply monitor. When a train "tones up" the dispatcher it shows up on the dispatcher's console which base has been "toned up" and won't go away until the dispatcher acknowledges.
zzdiesel
Member
I'm hearing a train every now & then but they have a lot of static & I only hear one side.
Back before narrowbanding and big watt radio's were used, you could hear a whole lot more than you can now. But a lot of Railroads now are simply using lower watt "mobile" one piece radios in loco's, 1/4 wave antennas on the top of the cab, and also consider that narrowbanding has really hurt range also.
And I don't care what the guru's of the universe of narrowbanding say, narrowbanding has reduced the range of everything that was once monitorable at "wideband", even with the motorola 12/25's, the same radio, same antenna, same frequency, when they were reprogrammed to NB, range was considerably diminished.
And I don't care what the guru's of the universe of narrowbanding say, narrowbanding has reduced the range of everything that was once monitorable at "wideband", even with the motorola 12/25's, the same radio, same antenna, same frequency, when they were reprogrammed to NB, range was considerably diminished.
kayn1n32008
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But remember that "Train style" antenna is also mounted on a very good groundplane (top of a large steel locomotive cab), and is also at least 15 feet above the rails, which are also elevated to a degree in most cases.
And a lot of locomotives, especially leaser's and shortline/regionals, use 1/4 wave VHF antennas....
And a lot of locomotives, especially leaser's and shortline/regionals, use 1/4 wave VHF antennas....
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