Blair Thompson writes in a message to All
 BT> My question is, what should I expect for the money? Is NO interference 
 BT> a reasonable expectation, or is it inevitable that something 
 BT> will break through? 
Depending on how close you are to the paging transmitters, it may be 
impossible to get rid of this kind of garbage without going to something like 
a Motorola portable programmed for receive only.  (Or modifying the scanner 
for a particular sub band.  More on this below.)
  
Paging transmitters can be up to 350 watts - that's a lot of power in the VHF 
band where receiver sensitivities are measured around .25 microvolts.  And 
scanners usually have a wide open "passband" type RF stage.  In other words, 
there is no selectivity except to keep the signals within the VHF high band, 
for example.
  
This means that every signal in the VHF band is going to be present at the 
mixer, only your local oscillator frequency and your IF selectivity are going 
to select the frequency that you want to hear.  But if the paging frequency 
is strong enough, it will get through.
  
One thing that you could do is to have a technician with a "service monitor" 
(essentially a high stability RF oscillator and receiver with metering and 
other stuff) to selectively tune the RF stage for the VHF high band to the 
railroad segment that you want to listen to.  This will mean that you won't 
be able to easily hear anything out of the rilroad segment - 160 to 162 or 
thereabouts.  I am not familliar with the partiicular scanner you have, but 
most scanners have this ability with clug tuned coils that are offset to 
create the normal broadband input.  Just tune them all to the 161 MHz region 
and they will reject everything more than a couple of MHz away.
  
You will notice improved sensitivity in that particular band segment, but 
won't be able to hear anything else.  You will also void your warranty.
 
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