Railfan Scanner Is Here

 Uniden has finally released the BCD260DN scanner that receives analog FM as well as NXDN and DMR (MotoTRBO) digital modes. It does not follow trunking systems, they want the big bucks for the SDS200 to do that.

The AAR (American Association of Railroads) has settled on NXDN as the digital mode of choice for U.S. railroads going to narrowband. F.E.C. has made a couple attempts, but is still in good old analog FM. If and when they ever switch this scanner should be ready for them and all the others.

 

Plus, a recent road trip revealed that many public safety agencies in smaller jurisdictions have switched to MotoTRBO or NDXN, so this would be good for someone, say, in south Georgia or along the panhandle of Floriduhhh. 

 

I don't own one, in fact nobody does yet because they're still in pre-sale at the time of this writing in late February 2024, but they're supposed to start shipping some time in March.

I get a cut from Amazon if you buy it from them, as you would expect.

 

Amazon link to buy

 

 

Non-Hurricane Isaias Update

I took down the antenna for the F.E.C. Railway Oakland Park feed in anticipation of high winds from Hurricane Isaias, but that storm turned out to be a nothingburger for SoFLA. So the antenna is back up and you can once again hear all the exciting railroad action on both Florida East Coast and CSX/SFRTA/Tri-Rail on the same feed.

The right channel carries the road frequency while the left channel carries everything else. You will find it an effective combination.

FEC Delray Beach Feed Online

I'm testing a new Florida East Coast Railway feed in south Delray Beach near F.E.C. control point "Villa Rica" and the milepost 319.1 defect detector.

That's about all it hears so this feed might not last long, but we shall see how useful it is.

All the details about all the feeds are on my web site since that's the only thing I can count on not to change behind my back, unlike Google+, Blogspot, Facebook, and all the rest of those evil data miners.

FEC Feed Grows Up

Software-Defined Radio is impressive! I'm testing it for a time on my F.E.C. Fort Lauderdale feed.

I recently started playing with SDR-Console to investigate whether it could make a reasonable alternative to Uniden scanners for my railroad feed(s) and am blown away at its capabilities.

SDR-Console (among other programs) can monitor multiple frequencies simultaneously, as long as they all lie within the chunk of spectrum being sampled. With the Florida East Coast Railway using 3 primary channels lying within 300KC of each other this is a piece of cake!

The cool part is that, unlike a scanner, the SDR doesn't sample a channel and then move on; it just hears everything at once without missing anything. So you can look at the spectrum display and see signals pop up on the road channel while a train is reading back a Form 82-T on the dispatcher talkback channel. It can be confusing, but it is neat, NEAT, NEAT!!

Another benefit of SDR is that you control the vertical, you control the horizontal; you can change the focus to a soft blur, or sharpen it to crystal clarity. Because Uniden scanners have been proven not to have true narrowband i.f. filtering the SDR provides superior signal to noise ratio when the proper narrow bandwidth is selected. This improves intelligibility of weak signals on top of being just plain more sensitive than my Uniden 996XT scanner that I had been running.

I can also steer each received frequency to a different audio channel so the Road channel appears on the right while the Dispatcher talkback frequency is heard on the left channel. You won't miss a quick transmission while waiting for the scanner to toggle back and forth because SDR is always listening!

And unlike a commercial-grade radio from Mother Motorola, you're not stuck with the programming (via finicky PC programming), you can just change the frequency or any other parameter on the fly and be happy while still enjoying better than average radio performance.

Now I gotta figure out the best way to run this stuff economically out in the field. Stay tuned!

Comcast Repaired--I Think

A Comcast technician has just replaced the drop from the pole to my house and even went the extra mile to replace the connectors going to the splitter with my neighbor and the lightning arrestor. There was a gash in the old drop cable that could have been introducing problems, so we shall see.

Only time will tell whether the intermittent outages that lasted 2-5 minutes at a time are finally a thing of the past on the Broward feeds. This includes the Mixer Board, Wild Feed, and F.E.C. Fort Lauderdale feeds.

Moved to Listen.TrackStreamer.com

All feeds have been migrated to listen.trackstreamer.com for those listening on WinAmp or other media player. The port number and mount points remain the same, only the domain name changed.

I updated the HTML5 players on my personal web page describing the streams in detail, so they work once again.

I have no idea if or when TuneIn radio will bother themselves to update my streams on their platform with the new information that I sent them. If past experience is any guide, don't hold your breath.

Comcast Outage

Comcast Xfinity cable Internet went down about 10:30 this morning. Service was restored about 15:40 so all feeds are back up.

Now it's down to seeing if this intermittent outage during the heat of the day continues.

FEC and Wild Feed Up

I have restored the Florida East Coast Railway and Wild Feeds for now.

The F.E.C. feed is the same as it ever was, still a rinky dink magnetic mount antenna sitting on the roof, doesn't hear all that well.

Bote's Wild Feed monitors Broward fire Dispatch 1, the tac channels, and some of the beach patrol channels until they become unbearable. This feed could change at a moment's notice. It is a wild feed after all.

F.E.C. Ry Fort Lauderdale feed testing

I am testing a feed of Florida East Coast Railway radio communications around Fort Lauderdale. The current range is limited by a poor antenna system, but the coverage will improve. For now there is a good amount of activity locally from the construction foremen overseeing the upgrades for All Aboard Florida / Brightline passenger service.

Since F.E.C. Railway does not call signals you will only hear traffic when the dispatcher calls a train or a train asks for permission through a particular work authority. A.A.F. work authorities are fairly busy during the morning and early afternoon hours while the regular freight traffic generally is more active in the evening and especially the earlier mornings when 3 southbounds cruise through Lauderdale while the Boca local and Port Everglades switcher try to get their work done in the mix.

Feed details are found on Bote's Streaming Audio page.