I know this is kind of off topic but what kind of scanners, for railfanning would you guys recomend?
scanners
- Thread starter taylor_up_bnsf
- Start date
Yeah, like in radio as opposed to like in computer.
As for recommending one, that's hard to say. I've got one my wife bought me probably ten years ago, and I rarely used it, mostly for police and aircraft, never for the railroads, mainly because I never knew the frequencies. Radio Shack is the only place I know that has ever had a decent selection.
not a xpert I use a RS and a Uniden you can get them cheep even preprogramed with all the A.A.R. RR freq. start at 160.215 threw 161.560 you should find every thing . I use two diffrent ones at once and have a third in the cabnet the warden dont know about .there is a forum for this too can i say what it is?
Tommy.
Tommy.
I had a radio shack Pro-97, connected to a Radio shack magnet mount antenna on my car (with only the top section attached). It worked fairly well, with a range of abotu 1-3 miles or so depending where I was.
I eventually sold it as I really getting out much to do railfanning in the area lately.
I still have Uniden BC92XLT, but it's not as sensitive as the Pro-97 was.
I also have a Motorola Maxtrac 32-Channel radio in my office connected to a traintenna 25' up in the air. I can hear a lot of the UP and BNSF chatter in a 20 mile radius. You can listen to the stream here:
RailroadRadio.net - UP/BNSF - Houston, TX
I still have my 8-channel Motorola GM-300 and a Radio Shack Pro-2026 that I'm tempted to try installing in the car with an portable antenna just for fun.
I eventually sold it as I really getting out much to do railfanning in the area lately.
I still have Uniden BC92XLT, but it's not as sensitive as the Pro-97 was.
I also have a Motorola Maxtrac 32-Channel radio in my office connected to a traintenna 25' up in the air. I can hear a lot of the UP and BNSF chatter in a 20 mile radius. You can listen to the stream here:
RailroadRadio.net - UP/BNSF - Houston, TX
I still have my 8-channel Motorola GM-300 and a Radio Shack Pro-2026 that I'm tempted to try installing in the car with an portable antenna just for fun.
Well I haven't gotten anything train related off my radio (haven't tried before) but I use my radio for plane spotting I'm a huge aviation photographer/spotter it's my big hobby next to model railroading which at the moment isn't much of a hobby to me right now wall1 but I use the Radio Shack Pro-82 it's a very nice hand held radio you can get any frequency you want and comes with that interchangeable antenna connection it comes with a default short antenna I think its like an 8 inch antenna or something and you can program 200 frequencies into your radio and it has all buttons to digitally type in your frequency and such it's a very nice radio and only 100 dollars. Oh yeah it also has a headphone jack a nice feature when there is too much ambient noise around announce1
-AmericanAirFan
-AmericanAirFan
Zero punctuation there airfan?
And ok, I was a bit put off by the fact that yes, this is off-topic lol...Radios for finding trains...Try Trunktrackers. My dad has like five, he picks up everything but transmissions from Mars (though even that is questionable...).
And ok, I was a bit put off by the fact that yes, this is off-topic lol...Radios for finding trains...Try Trunktrackers. My dad has like five, he picks up everything but transmissions from Mars (though even that is questionable...).
I use a Uniden Bearcat 350C scanner. It can scan everything from 20 mhz to 1200 mhz. I can even listen in on the communications from the International Space Station if I really wanted to. Really now I have it tuned to monitor the KCS. While it's not a handheld unit it can be powered by two six volt batteries connected in series and get reception through a small antenna that just clips on to the back of it. I got mine for just under $100.
I use the Sportcat 180 -- Neat thing about it is you can program in the actual names of the railroads (and any other frequency), so you don't have to remember what number is connected to which railroad. 
That's handy. Mine is old and basically featureless. I think I can program ten frequencies in it and that's it. I used to use it for scanning the police ban. At the time we were nowheres near a railroad line. My other complaint is the massive amount of batteries it takes. I'm sure today's scanners are much more efficient and feature-rich.I use the Sportcat 180 -- Neat thing about it is you can program in the actual names of the railroads (and any other frequency), so you don't have to remember what number is connected to which railroad.
That does sound like it's old. I can program about 200 in mine and scan over 2000 others outside the private bank.