Low Audio on some units?

[FoeHammer]

Ok is it my ears or is it normal , I notice some units particularly the ambulance on fleetnet & occasionally some wpd units sound like they are talking a million miles away from the microphone( no matter what the mod setting is set to) agc set off.its not all units but , some ,fire for instance seems to be pretty loud & close to the mic,..
The digital opp however, sound like they are in the room with me. It could just be me hearing the difference between those that speak close, or far from the mic, as well as the the strong digital audio thats tricking my ears .
Does anyone else with a 396T notice this? Also I rarely get a signal full quieting
there is always some hiss even if its slight, on a strong sig , it is not absolutly quiet except for the users voice, there is a slight background hiss, this is with the supplied antenna so that might be normal , Am I paranoid or what,....

[Rouse]

Originally Posted by FoeHammer

Ok is it my ears or is it normal , I notice some units particularly the ambulance on fleetnet & occasionally some wpd units sound like they are talking a million miles away from the microphone

I have experienced the same thing with my 246T on the same channels you mention. London Fire comes in loud and clear but the EMS and Fleetnet seem considerably quiet or farther away as you mention.

Other than that how do you like the 396T?

[jpm]

qoute
Originally Posted by FoeHammer
Ok is it my ears or is it normal , I notice some units particularly the ambulance on fleetnet & occasionally some wpd units sound like they are talking a million miles away from the microphone

I myself have noted copper units sounding like their miles away. I guess its cool to talk across the room like they do. Myself as a firefighter/paramedic have been taught to hold the mic at a angle and about 3-4 inches from ones mouth. I guess us fire dudes want to be heard by command for updates or any emergency situations. Also noted the across the room communications with the coppers during my recent Myrtle Beach trip. Always adjusting the volumeo n scanner and when the professional fire dudes talked the right way had to lower volume.

[jpm]

I have witnessed this talk across the room such as coppers do at the hospital i work at part time.

[joegen62]

Yeh. I seem to get the same thing with my 396T I tried using the GRE amp with variable gain. It helps but it also increases the noise too. All in all it's not too bad, The OPP comes in quite well and the others like you said either they are not talking close to the mike or they are whispering into the Mic. In the car I use an external amp which works really good.

[FoeHammer]

Ok thanks guys , was just wondering if was just my radio , & other than that I cant complain about it , just lil things like some stuff takes two hands & a menu scroll , but with this much packed into a unit this size I wont complain , In listening to Michigan Mpscs the digital which is mostly county pd & state pd can cut out & get pretty blotchy at times, I think this is due to distance.
but hey I'm out by the windsor airport with the supplied antenna so thats not surprising , hopefully when detroit PD joins the Mich system they will get a good stong site closer to downtown & that will come in better , the OPP comes in pretty close to perfect with a very strong control channel the wpd and ambulance vary between pretty good copy , to "turn up the volume to hear them" levels, seems to sound like it depends on the unit though weather they are actually talking into the mic , or just talking in the same general area of thier radio,....
I did hear the national guard on the mich sys that was pretty neat
and most of the kelcom & neuman system units sound pretty good from here
So so far all in all for its size & what it does it seems pretty good my printing on it hasnt worn yet & the flash upgrade went fine , you have to be pretty close for the close call but it does work , I tried it at tim hortons
I notice with different batteries the battery cover doesnt quite close as tight , thus producing an annoying rattle (could be mistaken for a speaker rattle but it isnt) , a lil foam or tape or something should solve it ,I am also waiting for a good case to come out , I don't want the display to get all scuffed up like my BC200 did, I have looked at the clear overlays used for palm pilots , but I dont like that fact that they contain a mild adhesive , If I can find overlays that are purely static cling I would feel comfortable with that , until then the original display protector sticker stays on,.....
I have had a lot of scanners in my time from the old crystal units to this , some of favs were the BC200xlt & the BC 895 (i still use those),
So as times roll on & things change I keep somehow coming up with the $ to keep scanning
As far as programmimg I am trying to cover any major incident in the area so
so I have wpd & all of fleetnet for ontario in windsor airport borderpatrol , etc ,& am looking for anything that would respond to say an accident on the 401 or whatever , even tow trucks & such can provide good details of the scene so you have to think of everything.
I left all the preprogrammed systems in , just in case i go travelling , I just moved them to the furthest away quick keys except for michigan i keep that one handy closer in the top ten quick keys so with all my local stuf the preprogrammed & ALL of fleetnet , I am at about 80% on the memory thats pretty good

[joegen62]

Are you manually loading these in or are you using sotware?
If so what are you using?
I'm using the uniden software to program most of the ones I got, the name slips my mind right now becuz i'm at work.

The neamann channels are quit active with a lot of truck delivery(gravel,dirt,and stone) , contractors, and towing. I think I got CAA or something like that.

You don't happen to have a bc780xlt?
Thinking of getting one so I can tap into the discriminator and using a slicer to get a good track on the control channels and get a better understanding how to log the trunking system.
Has anyone had experience in this and is it worth the effort?
Thanks and have a great Day.

PS... Looks like the Space shuttle made it back.... I think the boys and gal had to change there underware when they got back...LOL

[FoeHammer]

I currently use a Bc895 & yes unfortunatly , some may even say unbelievably I did it all by hand , I had a look at the usad soft didnt really have a comfortable understanding of it , & I also wanted to become familar with the 396 so I did it by hand a few hours per night after work ,at some point I have to learn to save it as a file so I dont have to do it again , I have this phobia that when I connect my radio to a pc , its gonna get screwed up , I did get up the nerve to flash it to the newest firm ware which went surprisingly well & was easy , generally with me if something can go wrong it will , so I'm pretty cautious....I heard a officer watching a guy steal a stero out of car by the tunnel I think it was he watched him do it then chased him down , I hear things on B.Patrol occasionally 163.625
but transmissions are usually pretty short , like for instance if a boat is crossing the river with no lights , but I dont hear the ones going after it ,then Ill hear that theyre following a car , wierd , I think whatever is on that freq is only part of whats going on..
Oh if you ever have time to kill put ur radio in close call & grab a bite at tim hortons or mcdonalds , & when they ask the customer for an order , count how many times u hear " ahhhhhh" "hmmmmmm" "gimme a second " "ahhhh"
It must be sevral times per customer by my count , thats gotta get annoying
I know when I go there , I know what I went for,....

[joegen62]

Yeh thats the one that I use, the USAD software is actually not too bad to work with. You should give it a try, I did most of mine on it and it works quite well not to mention that it only took half the time and I can save it to a file. If you did the firmware flash then go for it.
Do you have any coast guard frequencies that you have verified cuz I'm having a hard time finding the right ones. I see some flying around the river latley and I think its part of border patrol.
Hmmmmmm....Thats Funny about the Timmies.......LOL..
I new that close call would come in handy

[FoeHammer]

the orange coast guard chopper you see Im not to sure about , I think its going to be using civilan freqs for whoevers control zone it is in of course , & prob uses milair freqs also , I know the Dpd choppers that do the river can usually be found on 123.025 if i remem correctly , & I also remember the dpd city choppers Air east & air West used to come up on the uhf dpd freqs to assist , I dunno if they even still have those ,and in the old days when we used to have all those banner tower aircraft at the river for different events they used to chat for hours on 122.750. one of the air to air frequencies , I dont think homeland sec allows banner towing over the river anymore though
But to narrow down that Coast guard chopper freq I would suspect its out of selfridge so maybe a selfridge listing would list it & id imagine they could talk to the standard marine band too, generally if you see them over windsor/essex
I would suspect they have passed through windsors control zone which extends up to 2500 ,higher than that they are in a us zone that overlaps above ours & if they are responding to something on the water like I say they should be able to use the marine band to talk on standard cg freqs.
If they are doing border patrol who knows I would suspect some that is on the mscps system

I did find this on the forums ...

"The coast guard nationwide recently changed their aircraft frequencies because the 380-400 mhz band is now being used for new military base support trunked systems.
The new frequencies for the aircraft are 345.000, 237.900, 326.150, 379.050."

Coast Guard Group Detroit's Units Working Frequencies

Small Boat Stations
Station Tawas, MI CHANNEL 23 157.150 Mhz FM
Station Saginaw River, MI CHANNEL 21 157.050 Mhz FM
Station Harbor Beach, MI CHANNEL 23 157.150 Mhz FM
Station Port Huron, MI CHANNEL 21 157.050 Mhz FM
Station St. Clair Shores, MI CHANNEL 83 157.175 Mhz FM
Station Belle Isle, MI CHANNEL 21 157.050 Mhz FM
Station Toledo, OH CHANNEL 23 157.150 Mhz FM
Station Marblehead, OH CHANNEL 21 157.050 Mhz FM
Station Lorain, OH CHANNEL 81 157.075 Mhz FM
Station Cleveland Harbor, OH CHANNEL 23 157.150 Mhz FM

Coast Guard Air Station Detroit
USCG Air Operations 1 345.000 Mhz AM
USCG Air Operations 2 237.900 Mhz AM
USCG Air to Ground 1 326.150 Mhz AM
USCG Air to Ground 2 379.050 Mhz AM

Coast Guard Radio Watch
Intership Safety and Traffic CHANNEL 13 156.650 Mhz FM
International VHF DISTRESS CHANNEL 16 156.800 Mhz FM

[woody_46]

@Joegen

After the London bomb attacks RCMP helicopter were quite active over the river & doing marine surveillance on land(maybe it's routine for them, not sure).Heard them on 421.5367 talking amongst themselves.That frequency went silent however.Wish I could hear more of their communications.Don't know what system/freqs. they're using.

[FoeHammer]

Well ya sometimes we have some seldom used frequencies showing up , I imagine with the superbowl coming up there will be some oppertunities for some good catches , at some point before then we need to get a dedicated irc channel for windsor essex/det metro areas , that would be cool