Lookin for a small/good radio/scanner to listen to some local train activity that and some police bands. What would you guys recommend? Something not to pricey too.
Railroad Forums
Moderator: Aa3rt
jimzim66 wrote:Can any scanners pick up traffic from say, 5-10 miles away? The NJT NJCL yards are nearby, but i cant get the radio traffic with my handheld.The range at which you can receive usually has more to do with the antenna than with the scanner (though the sensitivity can sometimes come into play). The stock antenna that comes with the scanner is certainly not the best, since it's designed to try to pick up a lot of frequencies/bands, but not to do so exceptionally well.
jimzim66 wrote:Arent those short, stubby antennas supposedly the ones with better range?As I understand it (which may very well be wrong), the antennas that come with scanners are designed to provide a large frequency range rather than a large reception range. The reason for this is that the scanner is designed to pick up signals on a number of different bands, which all have different ideal antenna sizes. In order to provide halfway-decent reception on all of those bands, the antennas are designed to try to pick up some traffic on all bands.