Testing Railfan Scanner Feed

Currently the scanner feed is down. I'm testing a new VHF antenna I got from RadioShack. This is to replace the Yagi I build that was in my attic. This was the $26 VHF antenna from RadioShack. Seems promising right now, I could hear the Amtrak this morning at the Fairgrounds in Raleigh and all the way to Clegg on the H line in RTP. Eventually I will get the traintenna from DPD Productions but its about $175 for the log periodic. I also need to get the correct Maxtrac installed that allows audio out of the accesory connector. On another note, I heard the Moncure defect detector from Apex, some 20 miles away. First time I've ever heard that one go off.

I'll do more research next time...

Well, it turns out that I bought the wrong Maxtrac. I need the one with the 16 pin accesory adapter, not the 5 pin. So I have no way to connect this radio the the soundcard of a computer. Great. Well, I guess I'll have to get another one. Its ok, I think I would have gotten another one anyways. Hopefully I can do some more railfanning soon, haven't gotten to do much lately.

Motorola Maxtrac

I bought this Moto Maxtrac 300 because I heard commercial radios are better than scanners. I can belive that. So I got it and it does indeed have better receive sensitivity. I had to gather all the equipment to get it going, radio interface box (RIB), Rib to radio cable (I built), Rib to computer cable (came with the RIB). Then I had to find the software. Took me a while to realize that the way Motorola and others define pins 1-8 on an RJ45 connector is backwards. Anyways, to the good stuff. Last night I hooked it up in my car and I could almost hear a train in Raleigh and I could hear the Cary defect detector no problem. This is a far cry from my scanner where the best I could hope for was Apex. I'm not sure what people have that say they can hear 35+ miles. I can only hear 20 with my maxtrac and a antenna tuned to 160 MHz. How much better can you get than that. Anyways, I'm hoping to get another one of these on the cheap and install it in the attic with the Yagi. This will definitely get better range than my current scanner.

No more Western Digital Hard Drives

Well, I went to Hamlet, NC this weekend and caught the 92 Amtrak running 7 hours late. I was going to post some pictures but my external hard drive failed taking all my old pictures with it. This is the second WD drive to fail on me in the last 3 months. I have had it with them. And to top it off it failed just out of warranty. Of course thats easy to do with a 1 year warranty. The drive started making a wierd noise and now it just does 3 clicks two times in a row and doesn't try anymore. My computer doesn't pick it up at all. We are trying to freezer trick, but to no avail. I guess I'm just out of luck. I'll try to post a pic or two once I get that stuff back in order.

RTP Railfan Radio

So, I have this server up in my attic connected to a Yagi antenna and scanner. Its not the best setup, I can hear Apex, Cary, Raleigh dispatch. I'm getting a Motorola Maxtrac so hopefully this will have better reception. Try it out. You will need WinAmp to listen to it. Doesn't seem like much is going on at night but during the day it picks up a fair amount of local traffic. I'll see how it goes with this server and see if I'll keep it up. Let me know if you have comments. It doesn't have nearly the traffic that the radio servers have around places like Hamlet but it still works.

Slackin

Man, I have been slackin on the website. Went over to Raleigh and Selma over the weekend, caught some action. Couple freights, couple Amtraks. I will have to post some new photos to the website soon. I caught the lunar eclipse last night and got some pictures. I needed a telephoto lens for that though. Work is still keeping me busy.

Too much to do...again...

However, this time its work thats the hold up. The last three weeks have been crazy. I haven't had time to work on the website at all. Hopefully things will calm down soon. I got a GRE superamp but it doesn't seem to help the signals i'm picking up much. I'm trying to build a filter for the railroad band but its slow going.