Pro-197 Range Help.

[vividvisions]

I am confused now, earlier I suddenly was picking up the city fine, had no clarity issues and could hear everything 100%. Now it's back to normal, choppy and what not, If I hit analyze I am getting a 99% signal that jumps down to 75%. Anyone know what could cause that?

[DickH]

Originally Posted by vividvisions

I am confused now, earlier I suddenly was picking up the city fine, had no clarity issues and could hear everything 100%. Now it's back to normal, choppy and what not, If I hit analyze I am getting a 99% signal that jumps down to 75%. Anyone know what could cause that?

It's called "overloading", caused by nearby transmitters. If you look around you may see a cell phone antenna site - usually a large aluminum pole with many antennas on it. If your scanner has an Attenuator, that should help.

[freybearfreakfan]

In my area, we have 4 starcom towers in the area.

My pro-197, tries to pick up all four at once, and the signal is choppy. I was told, if I can get it to just to pick up one of the towers, instead of all four, the reception would be awesome.

But I have no idea how to do that, any ideas?

I think its the same issue your having: Pro-197 trying to pick up multiple towers at once and tries to decode them all at one time so it hurts the receptiion

[morrisr3nd]

Originally Posted by freybearfreakfan

In my area, we have 4 starcom towers in the area.

My pro-197, tries to pick up all four at once, and the signal is choppy. I was told, if I can get it to just to pick up one of the towers, instead of all four, the reception would be awesome.

But I have no idea how to do that, any ideas?

I think its the same issue your having: Pro-197 trying to pick up multiple towers at once and tries to decode them all at one time so it hurts the receptiion

Start by deleting the site frequencies that you don't want to listen to or put them under a separate scan list so you can turn them on and off at will. You might have to duplicate your talk groups though.

Although the scanner can only scan 1 frequency at a time so unless you have your site frequencies jumbled together instead of grouping site frequencies together you might have some difficulties.


Not a difficult task with the software.

I'm sure someone with more experience will chime in with MUCH BETTER advice.

[freybearfreakfan]

Do you think thats might be the same issue as the OP?

Thanks for the info, much appreciated.

[freybearfreakfan]

I found this ~ Simulcast digital distortion - The RadioReference Wiki

[vividvisions]

I do live less then a mile from a cellphone tower so that's a possibility. BUT, I don't have any issues receiving the County signal so I am kind of counting out that it's the cell tower interfering. I do have multi-site turned off under the system settings.

[thomas9246]

Originally Posted by vividvisions

I do live less then a mile from a cellphone tower so that's a possibility. BUT, I don't have any issues receiving the County signal so I am kind of counting out that it's the cell tower interfering. I do have multi-site turned off under the system settings.

Try the ATT button for the frequency(ies) you were expecting better reception on. I was ready to sell my 197 because I couldn't receive half of what I could hear on my old PRO-96. Found out that really strong transmission signal overpower and I hear nothing. Kicked in the Attenuation button and wow I could hear transmissions I had been missing.

[wb9otx]

I have an old "very old" cell phone antenna with a mag mount atop a metal file cabinet and it improves the 800 mhz band greatly and does about the same as the pull up on VHF/UHF. This antenna came from the old bag phones days, may be hard to find now tho.