Railroad Forums 

  • RRs changing to digital (vs. analog) radios

  • Discussion related to railroad radio frequencies, railroad communication practices, equipment, and more.
Discussion related to railroad radio frequencies, railroad communication practices, equipment, and more.

Moderator: Aa3rt

 #1178673  by DutchRailnut
 
no and no one will, railroad band stays same as is with only change being the Narrow banding 12.5 kHz spacing.
No one is gone order the railroads to change over 16 000 radio's to digital.
 #1178759  by CarterB
 
Dutch, I beg to differ with you. The Railroads were a key opponent of narrow banding, and held the FCC up for years, until it became quite apparent that virtually no one could get
decent channels to operate on. As far as 16K railroad radios is concerned, well into the hundreds of thousands,(if not millions) of public safety radios were mandated to narrow band this
last go-around. The FCC will announce going to the 6.25KHz splits when again we run out of bandwidth. The Railroads, and others, may complain, but in the end the public interest
will demand that band and digital. I am already licensing many of my large customers on 6.25.
 #1179036  by CarterB
 
kitn1mcc wrote:its not gonna happen.
Yeah, and that's what they said about the recently past narrow-banding from 25 to 12.5KHz splits.
I wouldn't bet on it not happening, too much pressure from needed frequencies, particularly in
highly populated areas. I am a licensed radio dealer, in weekly contact with the FCC, what's your source of info?
 #1179040  by Freddy
 
From one who's had to wait half a day for a radio to be swapped from an old hyrail to a new one at a CSX radio shop where there's only 2 techs, and 1 of those only works on EOT(end of train)
devices I'd love to see how all the changing over would happen.
 #1179262  by kitn1mcc
 
CarterB wrote:
kitn1mcc wrote:its not gonna happen.
Yeah, and that's what they said about the recently past narrow-banding from 25 to 12.5KHz splits.
I wouldn't bet on it not happening, too much pressure from needed frequencies, particularly in
highly populated areas. I am a licensed radio dealer, in weekly contact with the FCC, what's your source of info?

well from the chatter on batlabs it seems like they are only gonna make new licenses got 6.25.

what about all the small public Safty that just Purchased all new analog narrow band radios (some still have not and dont Care as well) there not gonna be happy if less than 10 years they have to do it again. and all the M2 and the other metroploitian cars all have Waris series radios and the M8 have harris radios that are not NXDN and were they gonna get the money to do all new radios again
 #1181718  by RobertF
 
Not only is it going to happen, it already is happening. Several yards on BNSF are running NXDN now. As far as I've seen, ever radio bought by a Class I railroad in the last year or so has been capable and programmed for NXDN on the very narrowband channels.
 #1182039  by kitn1mcc
 
only 2 MFG make NXDN radios That's Icom (garbage) and Kenwood.

i know for a Fact all the MNCR m2,m3,m4,m6 all were retrofitted with motorola CDM-1250 and all the new M8's come with harris 7100 radios. Also the AAR back off the NXDN as the standard for RR Digitial. if they need 6.25 they can also go DMR/Mototrbo has multiple radio MFG making there equipment
 #1182065  by CarterB
 
kitn1mcc wrote:only 2 MFG make NXDN radios That's Icom (garbage) and Kenwood.
As a long time radio dealer, familiar with and selling Motorola, I-Com and Kenwood, I beg to differ.
I-Com IDAS is certainly NOT garbage. Kenwood and Motorola are also good radios. I have sold
and installed both the MotoTRBO and the I-Com IDAS systems, quite successfully and with
good results. A lot depends on whether you want a 'twofer' on one repeater channel or set of
frequencies.
It's the difference between TDMA and FDMA utilization of the band width.
If you really want to know what is what, read: http://www.info4u.us/FDMA-TDMA-Comparisons.pdf
 #1182069  by DutchRailnut
 
Lets not get in brand war, currently no railroad is going Digital, and unless someone has proof, not some hearsay Info about talking to your brothers fiancée who knows someone in FCC, its not gone happen.
 #1187147  by MNCRR9000
 
uprr74 wrote:has any one gone full digitl
Over on radioreference.com there was a post maybe about 4 to 5 months ago that Metro North Railroad was testing ICOM IDAS for its Communications and Signals (C&S) department and maybe some other maintenance departments but has no intentions of using IDAS for road Communications. Going to try to see if I can find the posts.
 #1197634  by RobertF
 
The AAR has standardized on NXDN and the choice for digital modes. BNSF, UP, CSX and NS are now only ordering NXDN capable radios. I said it before BNSF is already doing digital in some areas, their LA Commerce yard and Barstow yards are just two examples and any new base radio or repeater being installed is being ordered with NXDN as part of the feature set. Look at the emissions code for any new class one FCC license, it will have the emissions 4K00F1E designator on it for 6.25 digital on it.

As for iDAS, that's iCOM's name for NXDN, just like NEXEDGE is Kenwoods.

Like it or not, NXDN is coming.