Narrowbanding changeover

[iceman977th]

I was monitoring CSX and NS from Chillicothe back home to Ashland. CSX HD and NS Columbus/Kenova dispatcher sounded fine, but once I got back into Ashland, it sounded like CSX wasn't operating on wideband (160.23), the audio was there, but barely intelligible, as if it was narrowband. Can anyone confirm this? I didn't add the narrowband channel in my scanner as of yet...

[EMTRailfan]

I was monitoring CSX and NS from Chillicothe back home to Ashland. CSX HD and NS Columbus/Kenova dispatcher sounded fine, but once I got back into Ashland, it sounded like CSX wasn't operating on wideband (160.23), the audio was there, but barely intelligible, as if it was narrowband. Can anyone confirm this? I didn't add the narrowband channel in my scanner as of yet...

The new 7.5kHz spaced frequencies in VHF (12.5 from 25 in UHF) aren't actually what everyone mistakenly refers to as "narrowband". The actual narrowbanding is a needed fix because now that we have the new 7.5kHz spacing in between the old 15kHz spaced freqs., the amplitude of the wideband waves from the neighboring freqs. overlap and interfere with the new freqs., so the amplitude of all freqs. had to be shortened (narrowbanded) to eliminate the interference. How I understand is that we will lose approx. 10% of our radio reception area by changing to narrowband, so if you were hearing an distant, scratchy transmission from a fringe area before in the wideband, you will most likely not hear a transmission from that same location from a narrowband transmission.

[pswag115]

CSX uses "Narrow Band" all the time unless talking with someone who does not use NB (Shortlines, Conrail, etc).

[TheChessieCatLives]

I was monitoring CSX and NS from Chillicothe back home to Ashland. CSX HD and NS Columbus/Kenova dispatcher sounded fine, but once I got back into Ashland, it sounded like CSX wasn't operating on wideband (160.23), the audio was there, but barely intelligible, as if it was narrowband. Can anyone confirm this? I didn't add the narrowband channel in my scanner as of yet...

From what I understand about the narrow banding is that even with the new channels and what not. You can still pick up transmissions on the old channel as they will tend to be more static on the radio. However, it also depends on your reception ability with your scanner. Say if you have your squelch up high, you would only be able to pick up the stronger transmissions coming from the locomotive radios. It also helps to have a scanner that is capable of picking up the narrow band channels. Older scanners are not capable of scanning through frequencies at the now required 7.5khz step.

[iceman977th]

So they may be on the new channels after all? I'll have to put them in the scan list. I'm on a Pro-197 so of course I can do narrowband. May explain why I can't really hear rail traffic on CSX from that far (as opposed to 10+ miles on the NS lines)