Scanners

You cannot use a scanner if you don't know the frequencies. You have to tell it what you want to scan for. There are a LOT of radio frequencies in use, RR, Air Traffic Control, Police and Fire, private companies of all sorts. Thousands of frequencies.

Your choice is either get familiar with the software, borrow someone's PC, and have the railroad frequencies automatically downloaded, or program them in yourself manually. The frequencies are readily available on On Track Online.

You have to suck it up and do the necessary work or go without. And it is not that hard, even for a non-techie.

I am totally addicted to my scanner and would not be without it on a train trip. And occasionally you get to hear some pretty wild things (duct tape falling off the brake line come to mind).

One of the nicest things about a scanner is when something isn't going right, you will know the reason why.

If it's the Bearcat BC125AT, there should be an option to do service search mode. Railroad is one of the options in there, and setting it to that should allow you to use it just scanning the railroad frequencies. I'm not sure if that covers Amtrak yard frequencies as well, but it should handle 95%+ of the radio traffic you'll care about when traveling on Amtrak.

The guide I found online has basic steps on page 48: To start a Service Search, press Func then Srch/Svc. I'm guessing the Srch/Svc will allow you to toggle between the different options, but I'll have to check when I get home and get mine charged up before verifying.

Does anyone know is there a basic tutorial on using those for a first timer besides what’s on YouTube...

Example when you say search mode for us first time users what does that mean ?

search for what ? it’s kind of confusing

So let me try to question this way thank you for all those that are responding if I was to take the sunset limited does that mean I have to put in all the union pacific frequencies from the road,,,?

Was the same apply if I was taking the Southwest chief I need to put everything in for Burlington Northern Santa Fe.?

If you are referring to the OTOL listings of frequencies for a route, they are giving you the name of the "host railroad" that the Amtrak train is traveling on. They also list a starting/ending point for the territory that a railroad uses that frequency. CP is "control point" You would at minimum enter the ones used over the distance your trains will cover on your trip. Many people find it practical just to enter the whole band with the AAR channel number corresponding with the channel on your scanner. Then, wherever you go, you can just look at the paper and know that the frequency in use where you are is almost definitely already programmed. This is just my opinion, others may have other ideas.

I tend to set my scanner up by route in different banks, so there are limited frequencies in the bank to make the scan as small as possible. Also to avoid nearby railroads I don't care to hear. I also tend to lock on the current road channel and not scan until it changes or I want something else, too (like the separate dispatcher frequency on CSX). That is so I have the best chance of catching the beginnings of conversations on the road channel. I also set up one bank with all the AAR channels in case I need to scan them all because I lost the road channel completely and either have bad information or no information.

Basics: each stretch or railroad has a road channel assigned.

There are defined endpoints of each stretch.

The channels used as well as the endpoints change over time. OTOL is useful but not guaranteed to be absolutely up to date on everything.

You only need the frequencies of the route you are traveling over. But allow for the above.

If you are not confident of getting the channels accurately, just program in all the 96 AAR channel frequencies and let it scan them. Or if it has a feature to scan "railroads" do that.

Read the manual and fool around with your scanner ahead of time. You're not going to break it and it doesn't bite.

Carry a copy of the manual with you on the trip. There have been several times I have "butt-dialed" my scanner into some weird mode I never use and need the manual to get it back into a useful mode.

ref5035 said:

Omg. I got this scanner, I can not believe how complicated it is ...Yes this my first scanner, never would have believed it to be like this...Very frustrated and disappointed

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Maybe you should just return it. Scanners aren't for everyone and our forum sometimes struggles to admit the obvious.

PVD said:

One of the nicest things about a scanner is when something isn't going right, you will know the reason why.

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Having a scanner is great for when things go horribly wrong. If you expect your trip to be a complete and total disaster then by all means bring a scanner. Otherwise I'm not sure why people love them so much. I rarely bring a scanner myself because 99% of my trips wouldn't benefit from having one and the other 1% of the time I'll just ask someone else what's going on.

There's no need for you to understand what other people enjoy, DA. It is something a lot of us enjoy, a scanner being a source of information is case of a problem is only part of it.

To each his own.

As for the OP, though. It does sound like a scanner would be more of a source of frustration than enjoyment, due to fear of/inability to perform fairly simple technical tasks. That being the case, returning it may well the best option.

The very first scanner I took along on our Amtrak trips was a Bearcat BC100XLT. It was rather large and heavy but was VERY easy to program. You can still pick one of these up on eBay for about $30-$40. The manual can be downloaded from the Uniden site. (If you decided to get one of these, be sure to get an AC power adaptor.)

I’m currently using a little Uniden SC230 “racing” scanner. (These are selling on eBay for under $100.00.) They are a little more complicated to program than the BC100XLT, but don’t require you to have a computer. (As someone who is easily intimidated by modern technology, I had no problem figuring out how to enter and organize the frequencies I wanted to listen to.) The manual is also available as a download.

As others have pointed out, the OTOL site has the frequencies used by Amtrak trains. In many cases, the same frequencies are used more than once by different trains, so it is not necessary to load all 96 American Association of Railroads frequencies. (Scanning through all of them takes longer.) Once you know the frequency your train is currently using, you can pause your scanner on that frequency. The OTOL frequency sheets indicate the locations when the frequencies will change and you can then resume scanning to find the new frequency. One good way to tell if you’re on the right frequency is to listen for the automated voice messages from trackside Radio Alarm Detectors that give the train’s speed and the number of axles. Or you can ask the conductor what frequency he or she is currently using. (I’ve always received an answer.)

Having a scanner along and listening in on the conversations between the conductors, crewmembers, dispatchers and engineers is an important part of my Amtrak travel experience, and I wouldn’t leave home without one. Take the time to find someone in your area who can help you program your scanner or return it and get a more “user friendly” model like the BC100XLT or SC230. You will be more than rewarded for your efforts.

zephyr17 said:

There's no need for you to understand what other people enjoy, DA. It is something a lot of us enjoy, a scanner being a source of information is case of a problem is only part of it. To each his own.

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I've had two scanners so far. Both of them reported an endless series of nearly identical automatic defect detector messages. I can get bigger thrills watching grass grow. Don't get me wrong, that one out of a hundred trips when everything goes horribly wrong I'm sure I'll really wish I had my scanner, but not having to carry it with me the other 99 times more than makes up for the loss.

zephyr17 said:

As for the OP, though. It does sound like a scanner would be more of a source of frustration than enjoyment, due to fear of/inability to perform fairly simple technical tasks. That being the case, returning it may well the best option.

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General purpose radio scanners aren't complicated but they can be tedious. Without the right computer and the necessary software I'd have found it tiring to program in every single channel by hand on those tiny buttons. I'd be surprised if the scanner software I used the last time still works on modern operating systems anyway.

Thanks for sharing your experience, DA. As for me, I carry mine at all times and enjoy it immensely. I like the detector readouts, knowing the speed and location. I like hearing the highballs and the communication with dispatchers and other trains with the roll bys ("looking good on the north side, Amtrak"). Hearing a UP dispatcher calling the lead unit "Am-Tiki 92" (a play on Amtrak's "AMTK" reporting mark) and saying "lighting the green candles for you". Asking the dispatcher to call the cops so they can put a drunk off in Oakridge.

As I said to each his own. I'll carry mine and enjoy it. My old scanner broke (dropped it one to many times) in Los Angeles in the middle of a long trip just after boarding the Sunset. I was jonesing the whole way to New Orleans, and I bought a replacement at the Radio Shack on Canal Street so I'd have one for the remainder of the trip.

BTW, I programmed mine manually using the "little buttons." It was tedious but really did not take very long. It probably would have taken that long to get the download set up (I am an IT guy, btw). Plus I wanted to make sure the channel numbers corresponded with the AAR channel numbers, which I wasn't sure the software would do. It was a one time task, and I don't bother to automate one time tasks when that would take about the same time as just doing it.

So you don't enjoy listening to the scanners. Thanks for letting us know. Why did you buy a second one, though?

I use the freeware software FreeSCAN. It works up to Windows 10. Not sure about equivalent software for macOS. Personally, I think having the software and taking the time to put the channels in it and then upload it to the scanner is worth it. If I ever need to add or edit channels, it's much easier to do on the computer than fiddling around with the tiny buttons on my scanner.