Railroad Forums 

  • top notch base rr monitring radio

  • 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

 #767742  by waterlevelroute
 
Hello and thank you for looking at my request for some information.
I am in the process of building the perfect beast, trainmaster antenna with good low loss cable. Now i want to turn to you folks with some experience with radios. I am looking for a top notch performing base unit, no handheld radios. Right now I have a radio shack pro 2006. How good is that radio compared with other top performers? My situation is that I live just a few blocks from the CSX/NS mainline here in Erie Pa. I have lots of activity both east and west of here. My goal with a good antenna and a good performing radio is to be able to listen
to all radio traffic 15 miles in both east and west direction in all weather conditions.
Thanks once again for any input you experienced listeners may have to offer.
lee
 #768062  by Ken W2KB
 
waterlevelroute wrote:Hello and thank you for looking at my request for some information.
I am in the process of building the perfect beast, trainmaster antenna with good low loss cable. Now i want to turn to you folks with some experience with radios. I am looking for a top notch performing base unit, no handheld radios. Right now I have a radio shack pro 2006. How good is that radio compared with other top performers? My situation is that I live just a few blocks from the CSX/NS mainline here in Erie Pa. I have lots of activity both east and west of here. My goal with a good antenna and a good performing radio is to be able to listen
to all radio traffic 15 miles in both east and west direction in all weather conditions.
Thanks once again for any input you experienced listeners may have to offer.
lee
A high quality GaAsFET preamp mounted between the antenna and the coax, such as the P160VDG http://www.advancedreceiver.com/page3.html
 #770295  by jmp883
 
Lee,

I'm not familiar with the Pro-2006 personally but I do recall it being a very capable receiver. I read the product reviews on eHam.com and they echo those sentiments so unless you have issues with the radio I'd say that between your antenna and the preamp that Ken suggested that you're all set to go. I see from the other thread you posted in regard to antennas that you already have gotten some great advice there so anything I could add would just be redundant.

In my radio shack, besides the multiple ham radio transceivers, I have 5 base scanners, 2 of them being the Bearcat BC-780. Even though it's a discontinued radio you can still usually find them on eBay or Craigslist. I'm very happy with the performance of the 780. I've used it both as a base and and mobile rig and it is a great radio. The radio is not too deaf nor too sensitive and the built-in speaker has great audio (though I do prefer an external speaker). I'm currently using a Bearcat BCT-15 as my mobile rig. I feel it would make a great base rig as well. It does have a bit of a learning curve to it and if all you'll be doing is just monitoring the local rail scene it may be too much radio (and expense) than you might want to spend.
 #770904  by waterlevelroute
 
Thank you everybody for the valualble info. I am interested in checking out the AR2 communications P160VDG. I have a couple of questions regarding that unit. First, how many pieces is the unit- is there a separate power unit? Is the pre amp mounted at the antenna? I see in their ad that everything is bnc connectors, if you mount it at the antenna how do you allow for N connectors?
I guess the best answer for my questions would be from someone who has one of these and telling me how this unit fits into a cable run that has N connector on the antenna end and a bnc connector on the radio end.
Thank you for the help offered.
Lee