The Pittsburgh Rail Fan Net

As many of you that read the blog know I am an amateur, or “ham”, radio operator. My call sign in the amateur radio world is WA3FKG and it is something that I am very proud of. If you are interested in amateur radio I suggest that you follow this link which will take you to the American Radio Relay League home page where you can lean more about the hobby.

Radio amateurs or “hams” tend to have a lot in common especially when it comes to hobbies scanners and radio monitoring among them. With those that are scanner enthusiasts I find a number of them that monitor railroad frequencies either exclusively or as a part of the broad spectrum that they normally listen to. Needless to say a large number of that group are listening because they are “rail fans”.

One such amateur is Dennis, KB3HPC, who is a life long rail fan and quite knowledgeable on the subject. (you can view his bio here) During the daily commute a while back he brought up the idea of having a “net” which is just another name for an organized round table discussion on the air of rail enthusiasts. Several people jumped into the conversation and said they thought it was a great idea and thus the Pittsburgh Rail Fan Net was born.

The net “meets” each Thursday evening on the North Hills Amateur Radio Club's 146.880 repeater at 09:30 PM local time. I won't go into what a repeater is here as that is beyond the scope of this posting. If you are interested drop me a note in email and I will go into in further depth or point you to web resources that will.

The bottom line is that this has become an information resource for local rail fans and you can participate and make use of it even if you are not a ham radio operator, let me explain how. All you need to listen in on the rail fan net is a receiver usually a scanner of the type used to listen to police and fire calls. A lot of rail fans have obtained these in order to listen in on radio activities of their favorite rail line or lines and thus have the capability to listen in on the amateur two meter band where the net is held. Assuming that you have a programmable scanner all you need to do is enter 146.880 into one of your channels and listen in on Thursday evenings at 09:30 PM. If the net doesn't start up exactly at 09:30 stick with it a few minutes since Dennis is sometimes late getting in on Thursdays and someone else will act as net control station if he is unavailable.

That covers half of the process. If you are a licensed amateur radio operator all you need to do to join in on the fun is check into the net. On the other hand, if you are listening with a scanner and can not talk back directly to the net control station you can still participate. Dennis has set up a Hot Mail account where you can send questions and comments on the net. You can either click here pghrailfannet@hotmail.com or you can add this entry to your address book. I can't guarantee that Dennis will get to your question before the net but I know he checks that mailbox several times a week so feel free to join in.

I have beens somewhat amiss in maintaining this blog for a while now and if you look back through the postings you will see that I have been trying to post the trivia questions that are asked on the net each week followed by the answers the next week. I just have not had the time as of late to keep things up but I will attempt to get back “in the groove” and make regular postings at least once a week. I hope that you enjoy the blog and that you will join us on Thursday evenings.