i have a mts2000 and im trying to pick up both sides of convos but idk how AAR have their radios programmed since i only get one side of the convo could someone give me some info on how it works and find out how to get both sides....thanks
William
K4SVT
Most railroad radio comms are simplex. Transmit and receive on the same channel, and generally line of sight. PBX is on a repeater and both sides can be heard. Some yard operations use repeaters, such as UP Council Bluffs, Ia Yard RCO Crews, but for the rest of the crews, single channel simplex. There also a few railroads that use one frequency to transmit and one frequency to recieve (2 channel simplex), e.g. BNSF Sioux City, Ia Sub, to talk to the Yardmaster you transmit over AAR 7575 to hear him recieve over AAR 2727. The radio is programmed to automatically switch between the frequencies, so the Hogger or Conductor doesn't have to reach over and switch the channel each time to transmit and recieve.
Railroad walkie-talkies, cab and moble radios are programmed with the AAR-Assigned channels that can be heard over any scanner that has 160-162mhz frequency range. For your radio, no need to do anything special, just have your favorite railroad frequencies programmed in, scan and enjoy!
About getting both sides of the conversation, again, most railroad communications are line of sight, unless specified above, you may just be too far away to hear the entire conversation.
