Scanners quiet after power outage.

frankdrebbin · Mar 7, 2018

I have a problem. I have a 996XT and a PSR-800 programmed for Illinois' Starcom 21. Last Wednesday I noticed they didn't pick up any digital talk groups or show a signal strength. I thought the tower site may have been down as this had happened before. Then I thought maybe they went phase II altogether. After a week I got my HP-1 out and it picks up everything just fine. I got to thinking I had my 996XT on at the time of the outage and both it and my PSR-800 were plugged in to ac power but my HP-1 wasn't. We had a lot of wind last Tuesday evening, and, I am a lineman for the city I live in, we had 2 phases slap together in a gust and tripped our substation breaker for my circuit for about 3-4 seconds before reclosing after the fault cleared. Could that short blink have messed up something in both of those scanners? They still receive analog conventional just fine but no digital at all. Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanx!

bb911 · Mar 7, 2018

FWIW, I experienced a power problem when the power company turned our power back on after an outage. They did something wrong up at the pole next to our drop pole, and every light bulb in our house burned out. The transorbs in my power strip were fried, -- and it smelled like it.

TVs, my plugged in base scanners, and other electronic devices all survived without any issues. (One of my scanners (circa 1990) and one of the TVs didn't have surge protection [transorbs]). It seems to me that your scanners would have experienced widespread damage, rather than partial damage (analog vs. digital reception), if it was due to the power line problem.

I realize of course that your situation was somewhat different, so that's why I started out with FWIW.

ka3aaa · Mar 7, 2018

both of your scanners only do phase 1 to my knowledge so the will not copy and receive any phase 2 transmissions at all. If they still hear conventional freqs they should be fine.

frankdrebbin · Mar 7, 2018

After the fault cleared our breaker reclosed so there was no other power problems that I'm aware of. The slapped phases blew 2 100 amp fuses on a spur that has nothing to do with my house. I just thought it was weird since they both stopped receiving P25 after the blink. Everything else in the house works fine.

frankdrebbin · Mar 7, 2018

I know they are only phase 1 capable but my HP-1 doesn't do phase 2 and it works fine receiving P25. I have taken power from the 996XT and pulled the batteries from the PSR-800 to no avail. Hoping I don't have a couple of expensive bricks now.

ka3aaa · Mar 7, 2018

a static charge can blow the reciever and front end out of scanners today so anything is possible.

ofd8001 · Mar 7, 2018

I'd be tempted to try a weather search. That's a good diagnostic to determine if a scanner will receive because weather is constant and nothing "fancy" (digital, etc.)

If you get weather, then the next step would be a re-programming of the scanner keeping your fingers crossed that the power business caused a memory lapse. Hopefully you did it via computer and saved programming files.

There is a diode (I think) on the Uniden that gives out if too much RF comes in on the receiver. It is repairable and you'll be down for a couple of weeks while Uniden deals with it. (See the Uniden repair site).

troymail · Mar 8, 2018

If both radios with AC power were working before but failed following the outage but the other not on AC is still working, it certainly sounds like the outage/surge, etc. did something bad.....

rufust · Mar 8, 2018

have a similar problem in that after a power outage i am only scanning in 1 system/group scanner skips over the other 9.I am about ready to wipe everything out and start over unless I find something.Anyone out there have any ideas scanner is a 996P2.

jonwienke · Mar 8, 2018

It's unlikely a power surge would have fried the RF section of the scanners unless your antenna(s) hit the power lines. But it's entirely possible that the power supplies were damaged, or that your programming got corrupted. Try wiping everything and reprogramming first. If you have backups on your computer that should only take a few minutes. If that doesn't work, then you probably have some magic smoke that escaped from where it belongs, and will need to have some repair work done.

Chronic · Mar 8, 2018

Might also try a full reset and re-program

frankdrebbin · Mar 10, 2018

I appreciate all the inputs. It appears to me to be a coincidence in the timing of outage and losing P25 signal. My PSR-800 and HP-1 will pick up the P25 although for some reason the tower signal is very weak and I have to use my tallest antenna. It also sounds garbled a lot of times. My 996XT will not pick up anything at all on P25 but conventional freqs still come through. I don't know maybe they are in the process of switching to phase 2 and cutting back signal strength?

frankdrebbin · Mar 10, 2018

bb911 said:
FWIW, I experienced a power problem when the power company turned our power back on after an outage. They did something wrong up at the pole next to our drop pole, and every light bulb in our house burned out. The transorbs in my power strip were fried, -- and it smelled like it.

TVs, my plugged in base scanners, and other electronic devices all survived without any issues. (One of my scanners (circa 1990) and one of the TVs didn't have surge protection [transorbs]). It seems to me that your scanners would have experienced widespread damage, rather than partial damage (analog vs. digital reception), if it was due to the power line problem.

I realize of course that your situation was somewhat different, so that's why I started out with FWIW.

I did hear of one instance where a crew (not on our system) was changing a single phase pot out and didn't look at the voltage. They by mistake used a 240/480 volt pot and when they heated it up the people came running out of the house and everything electrical including the wiring was burned up. By the time the lineman pulled the cutout it was too late. Company had to pay for all repairs.

Ronaldski · Mar 10, 2018

My reception FAQ -Http://webpages.charter.net/radiosite/FAQ.html

Suggest looking at tips 4, 7, 11, 13

frankdrebbin · Mar 10, 2018

Ronaldski said:
My reception FAQ -Http://webpages.charter.net/radiosite/FAQ.html

Suggest looking at tips 4, 7, 11, 13

Thanks there's some good information there. However my scanners were working great then went to crap all at once. I have switched scanner and antenna combos and I can hear P25 now but the signal is weak to non-existent. I figger they may be messing around with it. My 996XT gets nothing now on P25. Maybe changing over to phase 2 I don't know for sure.

ofd8001 · Mar 10, 2018

This might be a little out in left field, but the thought came to mind: Perhaps the power issue may have damaged/impacted some other electronic/electrical equipment in your home to the point where it is generated stray RF. That stray RF could be de-sensing your scanner.

tglendye · Mar 10, 2018

ofd8001 said:
I'd be tempted to try a weather search. That's a good diagnostic to determine if a scanner will receive because weather is constant and nothing "fancy" (digital, etc.)
....

To expand on this a little, are there any conventional P25 frequencies in your area? If so, I think I would program one/ some in.

DJ11DLN · Mar 10, 2018

I've been watching this thread since it was first posted and scratching my head. Just to confirm, you had two scanners in operation on AC power when the "event," whatever it was, happened, and both are having RX problems but still working to some extent. A third scanner which was not active at the time is working fine. Is this all correct? If so I doubt RFI caused by whatever it was is the culprit.

I think I would proceed by doing a hard reset, reloading the firmware and DSP, and re-entering the programming you have on one of the scanners and see what happens. It may be possible that surge could have caused corruption in some of this code somewhere...but usually these things either work or they don't. Once the magic smoke gets let out, that's that.

And with that I'm out of suggestions.

frankdrebbin · Mar 10, 2018

tglendye said:
To expand on this a little, are there any conventional P25 frequencies in your area? If so, I think I would program one/ some in.

Not that I know of.

frankdrebbin · Mar 10, 2018

DJ11DLN said:
I've been watching this thread since it was first posted and scratching my head. Just to confirm, you had two scanners in operation on AC power when the "event," whatever it was, happened, and both are having RX problems but still working to some extent. A third scanner which was not active at the time is working fine. Is this all correct? If so I doubt RFI caused by whatever it was is the culprit.

I think I would proceed by doing a hard reset, reloading the firmware and DSP, and re-entering the programming you have on one of the scanners and see what happens. It may be possible that surge could have caused corruption in some of this code somewhere...but usually these things either work or they don't. Once the magic smoke gets let out, that's that.

And with that I'm out of suggestions.

I have come to determine that my HP-1 that was not connected to ac power will not pick up any P25 digital unless I have my best antenna on it, whereas it used to work with its little sma rubber ducky. I took a road trip this morning with my PSR-800 and although I don't know the exact location of my tower I drove in the general vicinity of it and everything came in great so I'm guessing they may be having issues with the tower. It happened once before but only for a couple days. It's been acting like this for over 2 weeks now. I'll take my HP-1 on the road tomorrow but it looks like it works fine but have to have my tallest antenna on it in the house. If I hook up a different one that used to work on it it catches nothing P25. My antenna are all passive.

Scanners quiet after power outage.

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