We’ve made a lot of progress on CSX’s River Sub in the first half of 2025, having successfully rolled out every radio feed we had planned: Coxsackie, Kingston, Newburgh, Stony Point, & Bergenfield.
But as the saying goes, the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry. In our case, Kingston has failed to live up to expectations despite our persistent tweaks & upgrades to the site. Coverage simulations show that, even if we installed a 50′ tower at the host’s location, coverage still would not adequately cover the Catskill or West Park areas.
With that, we have made the decision to relocate the Kingston feed across the Hudson River & up into the hills, where it will have a much better line-of-sight to a larger portion of the River Sub. This relocated radio feed would provide high quality, seamless coverage between the Newburgh and Coxsackie radio feeds, ensuring that there are no coverage gaps along the River Sub. The transition is expected to occur later this Summer of 2025.
None of Kingston’s ailments are any fault of the host, the Kingston Model Railroad Club; they are purely due to topography. I am eternally grateful for their patience throughout this process, and will be leaving them with an upgraded radio system that members can listen to the action on while they operate their impressive 2-rail O scale layout – well worth the visit if you’re ever in town!
With a relocated Kingston feed picking up the slack from Catskill south, Coxsackie will be upgraded with a directional Yagi antenna pointed at Selkirk Yard in order to hear crews departing Selkirk clearly & consistently, as well as receiving the Ravena defect detector more reliably.
Bergenfield has filled the gap between the start of CSX at CP 1 and the Stony Point feed nicely, but I do intend to replace the current antenna with a commercial-grade Sinclair folded dipole antenna in an attempt to get the Orangeburg detector and trains around Nyack more consistently. This will likely be accomplished with a non-penetrating roof mount held down with cinder blocks. This will also enable us to move the antenna about on the roof to try to find “the sweet spot” for reception.
Lastly, the hum on the Newburgh feed is being caused by the mini PC’s power supply, and will be addressed with a new power supply next time I stop in there. Additionally, Newburgh and Stony Point are both currently only monitoring the road channel; the NI Dispatcher channel will be added to both during my next site visits.
If you would like to help support these radio feeds, please consider donating: