Railroad Forums 

  • radio distances

  • Discussion relating to the Canadian National, past and present. Also includes discussion of Illinois Central and Grand Trunk Western and other subsidiary roads (including Bessemer & Lake Erie and the Duluth, Missabe & Iron Range Railway). Official site: WWW.CN.CA
Discussion relating to the Canadian National, past and present. Also includes discussion of Illinois Central and Grand Trunk Western and other subsidiary roads (including Bessemer & Lake Erie and the Duluth, Missabe & Iron Range Railway). Official site: WWW.CN.CA

Moderators: Komachi, Ken V

 #191599  by brockportman
 
i live along the southern shore of lake ontario just west of rochester and can hear the CN on frequency 160.935. can also hear CP rail. late nights are best for this. just wondering if anyone else can hear from a great distance? the distance in a striaght line from my house to toronto is about 90 miles.

 #191671  by Ken V
 
Not to burst your bubble, but what you're probably hearing is the CN (or CP) dispatcher transmissions directly across the lake from somewhere near Trenton (the CP detector there is at "mile one-naught-seven-point-seven-Belleville-Sub"). While it's only about 45-50 miles and not 90 miles away, it's still impressive.

From my other house on the Ontario side of the lake (in Port Hope), I get better TV reception from Rochester than from Toronto using "rabbit ears" even though both cities are about the same distance away. This is mostly because there are no hills to block the signals across the lake.

Maybe I'll try tuning my scanner to the CSX channels to hear what happens. :-)

 #192055  by brockportman
 
yea, belleville. thats the detector i hear from time to time. if your going to look for CSX, try 160.800. its used the most around rochester. the lake makes a great ground plane.

 #192090  by Ken V
 
brockportman wrote:if your going to look for CSX, try 160.800.
Thanks for the freq. I may not get a chance to try it for a few weeks since I don't go to my lakefront house that much.

 #192264  by brockportman
 
let me know if you hear anything. im interrested to know if the signal will go that far.

 #241611  by Ken V
 
It took a while, but I did hear a clear signal on the Ontario side from CSX twice today. Mostly clear skies with some clouds on the south.
 #259391  by dummy
 
im in ny state just west of rochester and have a traintenna on the roof of the house, about 35ft off the ground, and heard a voice detector on one of the CN frequencies in picton ontario. i think. is there a voice detector in picton ? or was i hearing things again? i hear alot of action from CP and CN along the northern shore of ontario.

 #259434  by Ken V
 
You are hearing things. I'm just not sure what. The CN tracks in Picton were abandoned many years ago. There was some talk of starting a tourist line on the old Marmora Sub but that never got very far. Even if something was going on there, it wouldn't be on a CN channel.
 #259751  by dummy
 
maybe they were talking about picton ? or maybe it was another town that i heard.
 #262286  by dummy
 
maybe it was pickering i heard the detector. is there one in pickering ontairio ?

 #262456  by lock4244
 
CN has a detector on the Kingston Sub at Whitby, ON... can't exactly recall, but I think is is around mile 300 or 305. CN also has a detector near mile 7 of the York Sub. The York Sub (which is the Toronto freight bypass) and the Kingston Sub join in Pickering at Liverpool and Pickering Jct. Being that the York is single track and they often hold westbound freights at Pickering waiting for eastbounds to clear the York, you might hear radio chatter often with reference to Pickering. Alot of Via trains run on the Kingston daily, adding to the chatter.

Sometimes the RTC will advise a WB crew that they've got time to grab a coffee from the Coffee Time near Liverpool. I have seen a crew member make the walk on several visits.