listen to trains alot ?

I have a scanner in the livingroom going all the time on the CSX frequencies. Also have one in my truck. My friends all think im weird. Am i the only one in the world that does this ?

No your not dude. What is weird, when you work for the railroad listening to the radio at your home. I know of a couple......... there not like the rest of us. I'll bet you get sick of listening after a while, unless theres alot of playing around on the radio.

I cant really blame a manager listening in, sometimes, maybe to something like the yard channel.

ya, you never know when one of your employees will say something on the radio to clue you into something going on that shouldn't be, or goffing around instead of working.

You're not weird, it's a hobby and many folks have no hobbies or interests. Be glad you've got something to do in your free time, regardless of what it may be.

I've been in the radio comms hobby since 1974 and in addition to listening to trains, I listen to high altitude aircraft. As I tell folks, I listen to those white streaks way up in the sky that nobody ever looks up to see. There's even flight tracking websites that shows where an airline flight is in the sky and other information pertaining to it.

Mark Holmes
Marion, IL
[email protected]

You're not alone. A lot of us in the area were I live does the same stuff. This is part of our hobby!!

You're not alone dummy!

You'll find that many hobbies overlap each other. I started listening to scanners while in high school. From my interest in that I became a public safety dispatcher. I've been a railbuff/model railroader and use a radio while trackside. My other big hobby interest is aviation and I enjoy monitoring the airband here in the NJ/NY metro area.

My home listening post consists of 5 scanners. They are all programmed identically with a mix of FD/PD/EMS/Rail/ and Air frequencies. Each one is used to monitor a different service. The mobile ham radio in my truck also has scan capability on the public service, rail, and air bands so I can monitor those while on the road.

Like MarkinIllinois wrote:

You're not weird, it's a hobby and many folks have no hobbies or interests. Be glad you've got something to do in your free time, regardless of what it may be.

Enjoy yourself.........

dummy wrote:I have a scanner in the livingroom going all the time on the CSX frequencies. Also have one in my truck. My friends all think im weird. Am i the only one in the world that does this ?

Nope, you're not alone...

My FT-897D ham radio at home is scanning the local ham repeaters, as well as the railroad channels, as we speak.

The FT-8800R in my 4Runner (a dual-band, dual-receiver radio) has the left-side band on ham frequencies, and the right-side on the railroad, for my mobile listening pleasure!

73,
Dan KE7HLR
Reno, NV

Hey Dummy (that sounds so bad...),

Just so you know you're not crazy....here's my listening post:

http://www.radioreference.com/forums/at ... 1144207933

And here's my vehicle:

http://www.radioreference.com/forums/at ... 1148664397

Danco, thanks for answering a question about the dual-band Yaesu's. I was planning on upgrading to an 8900 after I pass my General test. I was wondering if you could put a 'scan-only' band on side and a ham band on the other. That's great that it can be done.

73!

I carry a scanner in my car and whenever I'm within distance of the RR yard, I listen to it.

I listen in on local police/fire/EMS along with the railroads.

jmp883 wrote:Danco, thanks for answering a question about the dual-band Yaesu's. I was planning on upgrading to an 8900 after I pass my General test. I was wondering if you could put a 'scan-only' band on side and a ham band on the other. That's great that it can be done.

The literature makes it sound like you have to have VHF on one side and UHF on the other, but that's not the case (it is, if you're using the cross-band repeater function).

But, you can program a mix of VHF and UHF on either side, in any order. Right now I have several 2m and 70cm repeaters, along with some 2m and 70cm simplex frequencies, programmed into the left side, and all the AAR railroad frequencies, the two 450MHz FRED frequencies, and the NWS WX channels programmed into the right side.

Each side can be independently set to scan.

I leave the left-side set to "Main", so that I'm ready to transmit on ham frequencies. When a received signal comes in on the "Main" band, or when transmitting, the audio on the other side is muted (to about half-volume). This is a nice feature to have when you're rag-chewing and the railroad frequencies are busy at the same time.

One thing I haven't tried is duplicating the local repeater frequencies on the right-side, so that I can manually tune in with full-duplex during nets to watch for doubles when transmitting. So I don't know how well that works...

The HyperMemory buttons are really cool. I have the local repeaters and local railroad channels active on HyperMemory 1, and everything else set to Skip in scan mode. HyperMemories 2 through 5 turn on repeaters and railroad channels when travelling North, South, East and West out of the QTH area. HyperMemory 6 is set to activate the WX channels in scan mode for listening to weather reports.

The HyperMemories are a real timesaver for travel, and save you the trouble of manually setting memory channel skipping for scanning...

Good luck on your General exam! I know you'll enjoy your 8900!

73,

Dan KE7HLR
Reno, NV

Dan,

Thanks for the info! I only wish I'd known that before I purchased my 7800. I only knew what I read in ads and catalogs and didn't know anyone who had an 8800. I definitely would have sprung the little extra for the 8800! Being a public safety dispatcher, as well as a ham and a railbuff, it's been really tough only listening to one band or the other. That's one reason why my HT rides along in the truck as well.

73 and thanks!

I listen to the railroad all day, every day, in my "office". Sometimes, I even hear people talking about/to me. Sometimes I just ignore them, other times, I might respond to their querries, or instructions. Of course, MY office is in the cab of some locomotive............... Regards

I received my first scanner as a Christmas gift in 1984 so I could keep tabs on the (then) local Conrail line. I got heavily involved in scanning which led to me obtaining both amateur and commercial radio licenses.

However, my first love is still railroads.

I have a BC60XLT handheld, a BC350A in my truck, a PRO-2021 at home and a PRO-2034 at work. All have 161.07 MHz in the priority channel so that I can monitor the CSX Pope's Creek subdivision.

My PRO-2034 is connected to a Scan-tenna mounted about 30 feet above the ground. Being just up the Potomac River from the Mirant Generating Plant in Morgantown, MD, I can listen to the trains entering and leaving the yard, and to the crews switching and unloading hoppers.

I listen to other things of course (local police & fire, Coast Guard on the Chesapeake Bay and Potomac River, amateur repeaters) but my priority remains the local rail traffic.

A website dedicated to the railroad in my little corner of the world:

http://www.traingod.railfan.net

Nope..i sit around and just listen to it all day.....i even write the axel counts, speed and train numbers when a train goes over a detector.