I've got a bad problem!

Ever since I got my Radio Shack Pro 433 it has been acting up on me. I will hold it on an ID and after a few minutes of listening, someone will say something and then it will make this weird noise and it won't stop. Someone told me on another website that it might be stuck on a "control channel" or something like that but being new to all of this, I really have no idea what that means and how it may or may not help my problem. It's like a loud static-like noise. Can anyone help me out?

Sounds like the control channel to me. I describe the noise it makes by saying it sounds like someone put a microphone on the wing of a very large prop plane, like a C-130 and then fed the audio of that mike into a small speaker.

Your description seems to lead to the conclusion that the radio stops tracking and reverts to monitoring the control channel conventionally. The control channel is a constant signal that would lock up the scanner and not allow it do scan. I'm not familiar with that model of scanner or its settings so I can't give you any advice as to how to stop having the scanner do this or if something is wrong with it. I suspect you haven't programmed in a particular setting correctly, but that is a shot in the dark.

I agree with ExSmokey, sounds like a control channel of a trunking system. My description of the noise would be a jackhammer maybe? Make sure you set the whole bank to Motorola trunking if it's a motorola system and make sure that all the system freqs are in the MOT mode. Then once you SCAN, it should not lock on to the control channel, while in MANUAL, it will always make the noise.

Does this make sense? I adjusted the antenna because it wasn't in all of the way and now it's been going fine the last 4 hours.

Yes a loose antenna means intermittent signal to no signal, no signal means nothing to hear.

I have a Pro 433 and when I took it with me to DFW once to do some monitoring there I noticed it was doing something like you're describing. When listening to a trunk, it would sometimes give me a brief "buzz" of the control channel for a second or two after a transmission. I noticed it only did it if the signal was weak. Try turning your squelch up a little bit.

Also make sure "Data skip" is tuned ON in your menu or it will hang on random data frequencies.

Hopefully it was just a funky connection with the antenna like you said. If all else fails take it back to RS and swap it out...

JWeir570 said:

Does this make sense? I adjusted the antenna because it wasn't in all of the way and now it's been going fine the last 4 hours.

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That would make sense. My 433 reverts to conventional-scanning mode of the trunked frequencies until it finds a control signal, perhaps yours wasn't getting a clean or strong enough signal to detect the control channel.

I have also had mine occasionally lock onto digital signals within the trunked system, even though the "skip data" option is enabled. It usually moves on after 3-5 seconds, but can certainly be annoying. In these cases though, there isn't any voice traffic heard and I can tell by the talkgroup as well.

Thanks. It was the squelch. It's been working fine. Appreciate it guys!

JWeir570 said:

Thanks. It was the squelch. It's been working fine. Appreciate it guys!

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DAMN! As i was reading down this thread, I was gonna start simple and say, if I get it fixed, you owe me a beer...then tell ya to check the squelch.
Day late...beer short.

Haha!!