pierson@dec-kirk.UUCP (04/24/86)
A brief and (hopefully) useful discussion of RR Frequencies These frequencies are authorized by the FCC, and are allocated according to a set of rules. The source for frequency info is the FCC office, in larger cities. You can just walk in with paper and pencil and look through the uFiche. Its a public document. (The Federal frequencies aren't listed...) Railroads are coded LR, and run roughly from 160.5 MHz to 161.5 MHz, with channels every 15kHz. There is an additional block of frequencies up in UHF around 470Mhz. Each RR can apply for what it thinks it needs, and gets what is available. Simple, right? WELLLlll... Local Governments operate all the transit systems, so THOSE frequencies are scattered fairly well. Industrial (captive) RR are likely to be on the frequency the parent uses, out of the I? pool. Railroads are sometimes authorized Marine VHF frequencies, used to be for car float operations, now mostly for Drawbridges. Neither the government nor the industrial pools consist of nice, neat chunks the way the RR (LR) pool does. The FCC list can be purchased, and is sold in a variety of formats, "scanner master" being one commercial one. I havent touched on slave loco control or end-of-train monitors. 160.800 is a fairly common frequency for road channel use on Conrail, 161.070 being one yard channel. Conrail has dozens of frequencies, Amtrak some private ones, though 160.8 is good in the corridor. Query: Does anybody know what frequency the end-of-train monitors use? It may not be in the usual scanner range(s)... Have a good day dwp (DEC E-NET) Kirk::pierson (UUCP) {decvax, ucbvax, allegra}!decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-kirk!pierson (ARPA) pierson%kirk.DEC@decwrl.ARPA