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This column is open to your considered comments.
Opinions expressed here are not necessarily those of
Monitoring Times. Your letters may be edited or shortened
for clarity and length. Please mail to Letters to the
Editor, 7540 Hwy 64 West, Brasstown, NC 28902 or
email editor@monitoringtimes.com
Happy monitoring!
Rachel Baughn, Editor
RTTY Memories of VOA
I thoroughly enjoyed the article on the VOA
Greenville transmitter site in the April edition of
Monitoring Times. I remember years ago when
VOA was much more prominent and active. In
1987 I came across an interesting narrow shift
RTTY signal. It took a moment to tune it in on
my Infotech M600A (purchased from Grove
Enterprises several years earlier). It turned out
to be a frequency used by VOA Greenville and
several relay sites in Europe and the Mediterranean.
Most were messages sent from Greenville
to these sites but some were being sent to Greenville.
They consisted of program schedules,
transmission problems, parts requests, etc.
I have included a few transcribed messages.
Some as you can see concern the satellite feeds
from Greenville to these relay sites. This was
found on 15.717 MHz early in the mornings
(Central Time - I lived in San Antonio, TX at
the time.) Not exactly a strong signal, no telling
how many times I had missed it in the past. I was
using a Radio Shack DX-302, the M600A with
a custom HF vertical.
Although I enjoy all of the digital modes
and using an SDR today, I certainly had a lot of
fun finding unusual signals like that with what
would certainly be considered inferior equipment
back then.
Barney Hamlin
Railroads and Districts
Ernest, my name is Ken Weindl and I live
in Nebraska since January this year. I work for
BNSF as an Electronic Technician, working with
all the radios, telephones, the internal network,
and the computers here. I am also an Amateur
Extra Class ham radio operator, callsign
N2VHZ.
Let me say that I used to subscribe to MT for
many years but allowed the subscription lapse
since I went overseas (Germany) to work for the
Army as a civilian…I allowed my subscription
to lapse because the magazine would not arrive
in a timely manner via the Army Post Office
(APO) and sometimes it would be as much as 2
months late!!!
Well anyway, since my wife and I have
a permanent address now here in Nebraska, I
decided to start the subscription up again. I was
quite surprised to read in my first new issue the
article about “Crawford Hill” and I am very
familiar with that area, being that we maintain
all of that (from South Dakota to Wyoming to
Colorado to Broken Bow, Nebraska) communications
equipment.
I copied the article and handed it out to my
fellow Techs here at BNSF and they enjoyed it
as much as I did!
Thank you and keep up the good work,
Kenneth Weindl
I have a question about monitoring railroad
radio. I follow your columns in Monitoring
Times and I have your book The Basic Railfan
Book but I cannot find the answer to my question.
Do railroads use districts for radio communication
control of railroad traffic similar to
air traffic control centers?
While monitoring railroad radio in Massachusetts
and Maine I hear base stations identifying
themselves as District 1, District 2, etc.
If such a system is used, is there a list of their
locations and frequencies and what areas they
cover?
John Rooney
I’ll try to answer your question as best as I
can, without knowing specific details about the
railroads where you are located.
Larger railroads divide up their dispatching
centers into dispatcher districts. These dispatcher
districts / consoles may be identified by a name,
letter combination, or number.
These districts overlap at their borders. So
dispatchers will identify themselves with their
district identifier and trains calling in will also
often identify which dispatcher they want to talk
to.
However, typically, all dispatchers are located
at a common dispatching center and talk
to trains through remote base stations that are
connected to the center by landline, fiber optic
cable, microwave, etc.
For example, where I live in NC, all the
district dispatchers for NS are located in Greenville,
SC.
You should be able to find something on
the Internet by searching the name(s) of the
railroad(s) in your area and “radio frequencies.”
I don’t think there is any single national source
of dispatcher districts, as these are up to the
railroads and can be changed as needed. Adjoining
districts may or may not use the same AAR
channels.
For example, a railroad may use three
different dispatchers to handle three different
districts on busy days. However, during a slow
holiday weekend, when few trains are operating,
a single dispatcher may answer all calls from all
three of those districts.
Much also depends on the type of train
control system in use. If the line has CTC
signals, a single dispatcher can handle a much
larger territory than if a line uses track warrants
which have to be issued by radio.
I hope that helps, Ernest Robl
RCA Model 86T-1
Hello, Ken,
Thanks for your many interesting articles
in Monitoring Times. I am subscribed to the
MTXpress edition, and it is great not to have
worry about when the postman is going to get
here.
In the April edition, on page 18, under the
title of Scanner Squeeze, you had a picture of
an old RCA radio. I think this may have been
the second-hand radio that got me started in
shortwave listening back in the early ‘60’s. I
didn’t write it down, but I always suspected that
it was an RCA. If it wasn’t this one, it was a very
similar one because the lettering is the same.
Maybe you have the model number, or a
picture of the entire radio you could send me.
Any help would be appreciated, Gil Torbeck
Hi Gil,
Thanks for your comments! Well, it took me
a while to track it down, but I did find a photo I
took almost twenty years ago and it’s attached.
It’s a 1936 RCA Model 86T-1, according to the
label inside. Maybe this is the one you remembered.
It’s funny to think that this radio in 1966
would have only been 30 years old but a galaxy
away from small, solid-state, multi-band
portables of the day. Today, a 30 year-old radio
wouldn’t look that much different from the
74 MONITORING TIMES August 2012