Someone else new to scanning

[dhaugh]

Everyone, I did look through the old posts about scanning which answered a lot of my questions, but I have some different questions.

First off, I live in southern Minnesota and the bulk of my railfanning takes place in rural, flat country. I've never used a scanner and am trying to decide if it's for me. What I'd hope to use it for would be, for example, while driving around lightly used grain lines in northern Iowa - a web of tracks eminating out from Mason City, Eagle Grove, Ames, etc. but I never have any idea where or if a train is on any of them. Throw in the ICE lines and UP's Spine Line and there's a lot of varying activity spread out across a hundred or so square miles. Would a scanner be useful over such distances?

If I'm in that web of grain lines, does (in this case) UP use numerous different frequencies in one area, or would it vary from line to line?

Or, if I'm heading into west central MN, you've got a bunch of parallel lines heading west of the Twin Cities - BNSF, CP, TCW, MPI... all about 10-15 miles apart. How easy is it to monitor a number of different railroads like that? Do scanners pick up all frequencies that you have programmed in, assuming you are within range?

Thanks much, Dave

[Aa3rt]

Hello Dave, welcome to the forum! By reading the previous posts you've pretty much answered your own question.

If you're "driving around" I would suggest a good mobile antenna for your car. In fairly flat terrain you should have no problem receiving signals at 30 miles or more. I have both a mobile scanner in my truck and a handheld that I take trackside. Since you're a newcomer you may want to start out with a handheld that can be connected to your mobile antenna when driving and then simply disconnect the antenna and attach the "rubber duck" antenna when going trackside.

Keep in mind that many railroads use a system of "repeaters"-transmit/receivers that rebroadcast transmissions along the length of the line. So if you're following an east/west line the signals are directional and may not be received too far north or south of the line of interest. I only mention this as railroad radio is not like commercial broadcasters or even police or fire department transmissions that target a general coverage area.

From my location in here southern Maryland I can pick up the Washington, DC Metro system (about 30-35 miles to the northwest) with no problem.

Remember that the best scanner you can buy is not of much use without a good antenna. The antenna provided with the scanner is fine for local use but if you're looking for distance a good mobile antenna is worth the additional cost.

[The S.P. Caboose]

Everyone, I did look through the old posts about scanning which answered a lot of my questions, but I have some different questions.

First off, I live in southern Minnesota and the bulk of my railfanning takes place in rural, flat country. I've never used a scanner and am trying to decide if it's for me. What I'd hope to use it for would be, for example, while driving around lightly used grain lines in northern Iowa - a web of tracks eminating out from Mason City, Eagle Grove, Ames, etc. but I never have any idea where or if a train is on any of them. Throw in the ICE lines and UP's Spine Line and there's a lot of varying activity spread out across a hundred or so square miles. Would a scanner be useful over such distances?

If I'm in that web of grain lines, does (in this case) UP use numerous different frequencies in one area, or would it vary from line to line?

Or, if I'm heading into west central MN, you've got a bunch of parallel lines heading west of the Twin Cities - BNSF, CP, TCW, MPI... all about 10-15 miles apart. How easy is it to monitor a number of different railroads like that? Do scanners pick up all frequencies that you have programmed in, assuming you are within range?

Thanks much, Dave

Hi dave and welcome. Scanners can be helpful for railfanning. What I have done before I buy a scanner is to look at the specs. I look to see, in the owners manual, what the db's are in the railroad frequencies. The closer to 0.3 db's the better because it helps increase what you'll be able to listen to. I would suggest listening to the road frequencies first, so you'll know what's on the mainline. The UP road frequencies are 160.320, 160.230,160.470, 160.515, 160.800, 160.875, 161.310 and 161.550; the BNSF are 160.590,160.650, 160.785, 160.935, 161.085, 161.100, 161.190 and 161.280.

I would also reccomend you get in contact with Altamont Press. They have a series of railfan timetables for sale. They can be found at altamontpress.com. They have many different regions around the country and include stations by line as well as road frequencies, pbx, just a train load of good information.

Back in the day when Southern Pacific had their dispatchers in Roseville, CA, I could hear them very well, partly because of the repeaters and where the antenia's were pointed. I live several hundred miles south of Roseville. SP at the time also had DTC (Direct Traffic Control) where the mainline was broken up into smaller sections called blocks. Block A could be 10 miles in length, bolck B could be 4 miles in length.

Going into the Twin Cities area will be very easy to monitor. Enter a different road frequency into your scanner and just let your scanner scan so you'll be able to monitor all the traffic on all the different lines and you can hear evrything thats going on. If the scanner you have has different banks, you may want to break things up, maybe one road one one bank, another road on another bank however you decide to handle things. Your scanner will be able to let you hear everything on each line. Also program in 457.9375, this is the END OF TRAIN device, aka FRED. If you don't hear people talk, the FRED will let you know something is nearby.

I hope this helps. Have fun railfanning.