396T single-system failure

[linuxwrangler]

I have a 396T. A few weeks back it was working fine in the morning but later in the day there was apparently no traffic on the main system I scan (Richmond/San Pablo/El Cerrito/etc. trunked). All other systems (trunked and conventional) were working fine.

Even in ID search mode there was no traffic.

Based on some red-herrings (system upgrade approvals in city council records, officers talking about "Nextel changes), I assumed that the system had been changed. But checking the frequencies in conventional mode, cataloging close-call frequencies sitting outside one of the antenna sites, and finally posting on the California forum where others report no changes to this system tells me the system seems to be unchanged.

Updated firmware to 1.11.03. Still doesn't work.

Finally, I copied the system. Copied system has the same problem. But when I deleted the groups from the copied system and used ID search, suddenly there was traffic! I put it in search-and-store mode and it has thus far identified 12 TGIDs.

I have checked and rechecked the settings. No frequencies, groups, TGIDs, etc. are locked out. Pretty much all the settings are defaults.

Any ideas?

 

[DaveIN]

If the other systems (including trunked) are working ok, I suspect a system setting you may have inadvertently changed. Can you upload the system for us to take a look at and post the database link?

 

[W4ELL]

Are you using CC only mode on this system? If so, are you sure you have ALL the control channel frequencies programmed in? From what you are describing, it sounds like the system changed control channels... maybe to one that you don't have programmed?

 

[mikewazowski]

Does the system regularily use patches or multiselects? Are the talkgroup id's you are seeing in search match what you've got programmed in? If not, then check your status bit.

Check to make sure that any group quickkeys are also enabled. Perhaps you've locked the group out?

 

[linuxwrangler]

Bingo! Thanks everyone - especially Mike. The problem was indeed a failure of the nut behind the wheel. There is only one group in this system and it has the same quickkey as the system. I must have pressed the 1 to turn the system off but done so when the function button was pressed.

This is quite probable as there is a great place in the corner of my dash where the scanner fits quite nicely. I can reach up and hit 2,1 to switch on Northern Alameda County and switch off West CoCo County on the drive to work. It sometimes happens that pressing on the scanner will cause the function key to be pressed by the windshield. I could easily have turned on 2 and turned off group 1 in system 1 and ended up with the expected result (Alameda only) till I switched back on the way home.

In fairness, however, this was a bit subtle - especially given how the scanner otherwise behaves. There are several levels of enable/disable with both lockout and enable at the system and group levels as well as lockouts at the channel level. I'm used to the "Nothing To Scan" message if I have nothing enabled. I carefully checked for lockouts and the system was, of course, enabled. But there was no message that there was nothing to scan even though that was, in fact, the case. And going through the menus won't tell you that the system is enabled or disabled.

But it's back to working. Thanks everyone. The good thing is that I got a lot of experience with using close-call, conventional-mode, etc. to map out a trunked system as well as lots of chances to test various versions of my in-progress Linux-based software to read the system configurations from the scanner.