New Antenna

I was railfanning at cp 43 on the River Sub today and noticed a new antenna on the metal control box that had "Digital Antenna" printed on it. It is about 12" in height. Does anyone know what this is used for?

Looks like its for the voice transmissions of a detector

I have seen one of these when they replaced signals on the Illinois Sub Vincennes to St Louis Line. I wonder if it is not some sort of effort at progressing towards the future for PTC, or if it is related to having ATCS.

I have another- I went to CP 43 and saw this folded dipole array- It was erected next to the dispatcher tower pointing N-S
Any Ideas? Is it related to PTC or ATCS as mentioned above?

Looks like a 'Uni-directional' antenna like we had on the Lineville Sub.(CSX) for the radio control signal system that was used.

Also looks like two of the antennas are for UHF transmitting and the other two for VHF.

Hi,

I have an older scanner, probably about 20 years old. Whenever I railfan tourist lines, I pick up their radio chatter perfectly. But whenever I've been out to the Reading and Northern, NS, or Amtrak, I can't pick up any radio chatter, I can only seem to pick up bits and pieces. Anyone know what the problem might be?

the railroads are converting to narrow band 12.5 spacing, a lot of tourist railroads are still exempt.
Your old scanner may need to be replaced with a newer unit that can do both 25 or 12.5 khz band spacing.