Updating www.rtprailfan.com site

Well, its been quite a while since I've posted anything. Actually I wasn't doing much railfan stuff over the summer. I usually turn the scanner stream off because of the computer in the attic and just doing other things. Recently I turned the stream back on. Right now I have this wierd setup in the side yard. I got the traintenna omni from DPDProductions but I have it mounted on this pole in the yard because I haven't figured out how to get it on the roof yet. In addition, I don't think my HOA would like me mounting it up there. Anyways, I have it connected to a Maxtrac in the garage, not a bad setup but it would be better if the antenna were on the roof. I have also been upading the RTPRailfan site as I have let it go for a while now. Hope to be adding some new material but probably won't completely overhall the site. Talk more soon....

Railfan Locations

I took the same basic usage that I have on http://www.whatstodotoday.com and applied it to http://www.rtprailfan.com. Essentially users can register with the site and post their railfan sites. I have posted several of my sites around North Carolina. Even though its centered around North Carolina, you can post locations for anywhere in the world. Pretty cool....

RTPRailfan Forum taken down

Hi yall,

Been a while, been working on a new website. I took the RTPRailfan forum offline because it was getting to much junk and spam on it. It wasn't used very often anyways. I did put the RTPRailfan radio back up. I'll probably leave it up until summer when the heat is too much for the computer in the attic. By the way, I'm setting up a new site called whatstodo_. Should be an interesting site for the Raleigh area at first. I'm just getting the last issues worked out and then I should be good to go.

See ya soon...

Railfan Scanning

Well, I received my Traintenna LP but I haven't had much luck in getting it going. Well, by that I mean it seems to be working but it doesn't pick up any better than my VHF antenna from RadioShack. I'm don't think I have anything setup wrong, I just think it doesn't pick up any better and I'm fairly disappointed because that antenna was $170, my other VHF antenna was $25 and does just as good of a job??? That makes no sense to me. As soon as I get that thing setup the way I want it I'll put the RTPRailfan stream back online. Till then....

Fall is coming!

Time to get back to railfanning! This summer has gone by quickly. Had some good times and bad. LeeAnne's grandfather died back in July, that was not a good time. He is missed. On the positive side, both LeeAnne and I have gotten promotions recently. Its always good to feel like you are doing something right. Just this past week I got back from a Washington trip that included some railfanning sidelines to the longest tunnel in the U.S. (Cascade tunnel), hiked up some of Mt. Rainier, and checked out the raillines along the Columbia River. It was a great trip and I plan on updating it on www.rtprailfan.com. In addition I recently ordered my Traintenna from DPD productions and I will be getting the server back up and running now that it should be cooling off. See you at RTPRAILFAN!

RTP Scanner Radio is ONLINE!

I finally got the RTP Railfan radio online. I'm having some problems with the intermods that find there way into the railroad band. Its pretty good though, I've only had it online a day and I can here the Cary, NC CSX detector. I would really like to be able to hear the NS detector up in Clegg, NC but I haven't heard anything so far. I need to work more on rtprailfan now that I have the railfan radio online.

Can't work on website, building Yagi Antenna

Well, I read online that some people were using Yagi antenna's for receiving talk over the AAR channels. I have two monopole antenna's but I thought I would try building a Yagi. I sort of got it working I guess but I still don't think its as good as it should be. I guess I'll give it a while and see how it does. Hopefully I can get it optimized and then I'll leave it be. I haven't worked on the www.rtprailfan.com site for a while because i've been wrapped up in antenna design. Hope to post some pics soon.

RTP Railfan

Finally, I have something to show for my effort. http://www.rtprailfan.com is sorta finished. I have some bugs and some of the links don't link to anything but I have the main page up and 3 articles. Hopefully I can get the last of the articles that I wanted to do completed soon. I took a break for a while, had other things going on. In antenna news, I got my Smiley antenna tuned to 160 MHz in. Its pretty nice, I can definitely hear more of what is floating around the airwaves than I could with my Diamond. I think I heard the dispatcher in Raleigh the other day but that my have been a fluke because I haven't heard anything recently. I also have a mag mount for my car that helps when I'm driving around. Pretty nice. Well thats about all thats happening. I should have more of my website together soon!