Pro 652 Reception problems

[mnrick]

I purchased a Pro-652 back in November, I got it all programmed but I continually have reception issues with broken transmissions and it stops on frequencies like it is receiving something but all I hear is like someone is repeatedly clicking a mic without speaking.

My conventional (mostly fire) comes in fine but I am having issues with the APCO for my area. The City that I live in has their own system but they use the County's towers, as does the County and some of the other Suburbs that have their own systems. I am having issues with my County system and the Cities within the County that use their towers. . Neighboring Counties come in better than my own does.

One user here suggested turning on my attenuator, which I did, with no positive results.

I am not sure if it is a programming error of some sort, if I just live in a bad location or what but this is getting more frustrating as time goes by.

Any advice?

Thank you

 

[retiredmich]

Do you have your PRIORITY on ? if so turn it off

 

[mnrick]

Priority is not on, as far as I know I do not have any priority set.

 

[retiredmich]

What type of antenna do you have on your scanner ?

 

[mnrick]

The stock telescoping one that came with it.

 

[retiredmich]

Try using 800 MHz bnc rubber duck, they make them with a 90 degree connector. Your antenna is a bnc ?

 

[Redneck0410]

Could possibly be intermod from a simulcast system.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[mnrick]

Ok. I just woke up awhile ago. Would Radio Shack have that antenna?

 

[ecps92]

Depends on the stock avail at your local RS/Sprint, but yes
they had (saw one yesterday at my local) an 800 Mhz Duck and then purchase a bnc right (or left) angle adapter

Ok. I just woke up awhile ago. Would Radio Shack have that antenna?

 

[mnrick]

I'll look into it. Time to get ready for the day.

Have a good one

 

[nascar2048]

Pro 652 reception

I purchased one of these last week and had a chance to play with it this weekend. I am about 40 miles SW of Chicago and listen to mostly rails, marine, and now the police/fire now that I can pick up the digital.
I got most of my freqs plugged in and gave it a listen. I have an old "three pronger" antenna on the roof. I was quite surprised when comparing it to my handheld Uniden Spectra radio off of the same antenna, the old Uniden was picking up FAR MORE than the Pro 652. The radio chatter from the various railroads was almost nonstop, picking up many transmissions from the N and even into Indiana. The Pro652 was not doing near that well. Am I missing something here or is there something I can adjust? I am by no means a radio "Techie", I am just going by what I heard. The squelch on the 652 is set to just short of constant static.
When I went through the weather bands (there are seven frequencies you can pickup), the uniden picked them all up, while the Pro 52 picked up the two on the low end and the two on the high end. However, when I would manually go through the weather channels, the Pro would pick up most all of them, but when you scanned the band it would only stop on four of them.

Any help or advice would be appreciated.

 

[Ghstwolf62]

Got to add to this. Picked up one and very disappointed with it compared to my 600. This is with all the tweaks used on the 600 applied to it.

For the life of me can't pick up a P25 simulcast system when I go down to where its at. Reception seems poor in general and misses a lot compared to my 600.

 

[mnrick]

I never did get around to ordering that antenna, I am looking on the radio shack site tonight and cannot find it. Searching Rubber antenna gets me rubber feet and when I search just antennas I am not seeing any rubber scanner antennas.

Is there are part/item number? There are no radio shacks near me anymore, the one I bought the scanner at is closed, I am trying to look on line or on Amazon.

My scanner continues to get bad reception, it is strange because more distant areas come in well but the county I live in is often broken transmissions or nothing at all. I have checked and rechecked my programming and I don't understand it.

If people here think a rubber antenna gets better reception of 800 Mhz than the stock telescoping one does then I will try it, otherwise this thing is just sitting here causing me aggravation every time I turn it on.

 

[equineguy]

I am new to the digital trunking arena, and still have tons to learn... but what I have noticed is that the squelch is playing a big role in signal and its been tough to get a sweet spot. Seems like each band has a different squelch level and it takes adjustments to get it to 'voice up'. I have not tried various antennas yet, but its on my list. Right now I have been doing good with my squelch on the 652 around 10-11 o'clock

 

[Chronic]

you want to adjust the squelch just to the point that you are not hearing the hiss of white noise when there is no transmission , and at that point the scanner will begin to start scanning , anything much beyond that will reduce your ability to receive weak signals.

RadioShack 800MHz Scanner Antenna

Model #: 20-283 | Catalog #: 2000283

 

[ffbob561]

I too purchased a 652, and live in NJ where our local system is a P-25 Harris simulcast. The first two months I had no problem picking everything up, and than I lost everything. I have checked RR, control channels, etc., with no luck. I get anything conventional as well as the NJ State Police, get other p-25 systems, but not Wayne, NJ. I'm sure it is because it is a simulcast system, but I have had the chance to borrow a Uniden 436 and it picks up the simulcast system with no problems at all.

 

[flythunderbird]

I am new to the digital trunking arena, and still have tons to learn... but what I have noticed is that the squelch is playing a big role in signal and its been tough to get a sweet spot. Seems like each band has a different squelch level and it takes adjustments to get it to 'voice up'. I have not tried various antennas yet, but its on my list. Right now I have been doing good with my squelch on the 652 around 10-11 o'clock

Got to add to this. Picked up one and very disappointed with it compared to my 600. This is with all the tweaks used on the 600 applied to it.

I realize that this is an old thread, and I apologize for digging it up - but I felt that I could add a couple things of value in case someone else runs across these issues.

I was asked this week to program a new 652 for someone. The user had no clue about digital anything; he doesn't even own a computer. He just wants to listen to his scanner, and whoever programmed it for him previously really botched it up.

My first inclination was to clone my 652 to the new one, which I did - and I was immediately disappointed with the performance of the new 652. The sensitivity was not good even on conventional frequencies, and you could almost forget picking up P25 systems (I can see the system tower from my front porch, about 1.8 miles away - but the new 652 wouldn't hardly pick it up, regardless of the antenna used. My 652 has no such problems). Further investigation found that my 652 and the new 652 are not exactly the same. My 652 was built in May 2014, and the new 652 was built in October 2015; it turned out that the extended settings I use to optimize the performance of my 652 actually reduced the performance of the new 652, especially on P25 systems - so apparently newer 652s have some internal differences compared to older units. A global reset was performed to return the new 652 to factory defaults, and the scannable objects were reloaded; the new 652 now performs like a champ. I would say that Whistler has done some work on the internals of the 652 (and presumably the WS1065) to make the unit perform better with the factory default settings.

Additional observations:

1. The factory RSSI bar thresholds were too low and needed adjusted; I set them to 222, 259, 296, 333, and 370 for bars 1-5, respectively. The factory values on the new 652 were lower than the original factory values for my 652, too.

2. The new 652 has a stronger audio squelch compared to my 652, so less squelch needs to be used compared to my older unit.

3. The new 652 has a noticeably hotter receive than my 652, which might be contributing something to the simulcast issues described above.

Thanks for indulging me ... I hope that someone finds this to be useful.

 

[mnrick]

Thanks for the reply. I never did figure mine out, I hardly ever turn it on anymore.

People recommend turning the ATT on and trying the rubber 800Mhz antenna. It doesn't work. Others recommend a outdoor antenna which is not a option where I live.

How do I do a global reset? If it might work it is worth trying. I live in a large metro area and feel I should be getting a lot of radio traffic but I am hardly getting anything. My signal meter shows no bars at all.

Any advice is appreciated.

Thank you.

 

[flythunderbird]

How do I do a global reset? If it might work it is worth trying. I live in a large metro area and feel I should be getting a lot of radio traffic but I am hardly getting anything. My signal meter shows no bars at all.

Here you go - this link will show you how.

Easier to Read Pro-651/652/106/197 - WS1040/1065 - PSR 500/600 Digital Scanner Manual

 

[mnrick]

Thanks. I'm at work for a few more hours but I'll try it out when I get home.

I'll let you know.