996XT reception issues

[ff-paramedic]

I have to say that the 996 XT is a bit of a disappointment reception-wise. I
have noticed since receiving it that I could no longer hear agencies that I
heard quite clearly with other scanners.

Tonight I decided to compare the 996XT with a GRE 400, and the 400 smokes it as
far as reception goes; with both units using the cheapo back of set antenna, i
scanned a few of the same frequencies with both scanners. The GRE picked up
several agencies loud and clear that the 996XT either picked up with weak copy
or scanned right by.

Has anyone noticed a similar performance issue, and are there any tweaks I can
do to the scanner to boost performance? I love the thing otherwise, but I am
bummed that I can't hear some things I normally would hear. I am actually
thinking of selling it and getting a GRE PRS600 instead, although the 600 does
not have some of the features I like on the 996XT.

 

[ff-paramedic]

BTW, I am noticing this on all bands, not just one or two.

 

[W6KRU]

Yes, it seems that Uniden has focused their engineering efforts on bells and whistles. My PSR-500 is my goto scanner although the 39XT has some features that I like.

 

[dracer777]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7E18 Safari/528.16)

I had a 106 and 396xt and compared them side by side on weak towers and the 106 outperformed the 396 by only a marginal amount at best. Nothing that would affect any type of typical use (within 30-40 miles).

 

[ridgescan]

I dont have your model but my BC785D and my BC350A are running on one antenna through a coax switch. On VHF/UHF, the little 350 makes the 785 look real bad. The 785 will receive cleaner signals but with less carrier if I only plug the coax stinger into the antenna jack but leave the collar unscewed but that screws up the trunking reception a bit. The 350 gets strong reception with the coax hooked up properly. I take this as front end overload on the 785. Ive been told the trade off is the trunking ability on the 785. Why? When you pay $500 for a scanner you should get it all IMO.
That's why I run the two scanners-so I get it all really well.

 

[NCIC105]

You know a strange thing I tried and it worked great,
I had a unused Phillips amped interior or exterior antenna for HDTV....
Hooked it up to my 996XT, Reception is great!

 

[JohnRhom]

BCD996XT Reception

While setting up my 996XT I talked to our County Radio Tech, this guy takes care of all the radios in the county (Law Enforcement, EMS, Fire and Service channels)

He told me while setting up the first 996XT, he had encountered this same reception problem, by using his scope, signal generator and other "Toys" at his disposal, he determined that the 996 was picking up mutable signal from 2 or more towers at the same time and this was the cause of the bad reception. Our county has 5 repeater sites with 5 towers.

His solution was to use a directional antenna directed at the closest tower and or strongest signal to your location. He said that this had cleared up the reception.

This may be the reason that your Digital TV antenna is doing well for you, it may be pointed in a favorable direction.

How, all of you be kind to me, I'm not a TECH, I'm just passing on some information that seems to solve the problem.

Thanks

John

 

[NCIC105]

You know there would appear to be some validity to his statement...I do have it pointed in the direction of a tower..

Thank s for the information!