BCD 996T burst of buzzzzzzz

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000245

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Anybody have any idea how to get rid of the data blurp or burst of buzz before the voice transmission on APCO25/Indiana SAFE T.I've about wore the covers off my 996t manual.This doesn't occur every transmission but it happens about 50% of the time.Any help or ideas would be appreciated???
 

k9xyz

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Good luck

You cannot get rid of it with that scanner. You can do some tweaking but you will still have it. This is an issue that the unidens have, hopefully when the firmware updates come out the problem will be gone. Its not just with the safe-t system here in Indiana, it occurs with MANY systems. I have traveled much with my 396 and the 996s I used to have and it drove me nuts. I no longer own any 996s but hopefully the 396 can be fixed.
Even though digital scanners have been out for years, scanning these systems can still be difficult. On the other hand the new GRE scanners have finally just about perfected it.
YOU DONT GET THAT NOISE on the new GREs and the digital audio is fantastic on them, at least here I have never heard it not once on any of my new scanners.
 

N4DXX

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I agree to a point

k9xyz said:
You cannot get rid of it with that scanner. You can do some tweaking but you will still have it. This is an issue that the unidens have, hopefully when the firmware updates come out the problem will be gone. Its not just with the safe-t system here in Indiana, it occurs with MANY systems. I have traveled much with my 396 and the 996s I used to have and it drove me nuts. I no longer own any 996s but hopefully the 396 can be fixed.
Even though digital scanners have been out for years, scanning these systems can still be difficult. On the other hand the new GRE scanners have finally just about perfected it.
YOU DONT GET THAT NOISE on the new GREs and the digital audio is fantastic on them, at least here I have never heard it not once on any of my new scanners.
I dogged this scanner for the last 3 year's because of the unlevel audio between digital and analog,But recently i traded for another to give it one last shot..Glad i did i had to turn the digital gain all the way up in the hidden menu and the analog agc all the way down to -5 to get the volume level equal and it's now pleasent to listen to..I also have the psr 600 and it as well is a great scanner,Although i have to admit it's somewhat better at the brrrappp it lack's a little in the VHF range very easy to overload and that scanner is dogg ugly compared to the 996t but i enjoy both of them.If there is one thing i have learned from all of this there will never be the (perfect scanner) They all suffer from one fault to the other,No matter how good they are they are never good enough whats not wrong with one will be wrong with the other and vise versa.We find fault's in them all no matter who make's them.i could spend all night picking apart the psr's funky s-meter and the poor vhf front end but thats a waste of my time cause all the griping i do won't change a thing you have to learn to take the pros with the cons.The VHF on the 996 is much better than the 600 but thats just like the brrraaapp in the 996, you hear every channel from 2-13 overloading the front end on the 600 but the attenuator does help a lot..So we can sit here and have a pouting party or just be glad we have the freedom that many other's do not have,And be thankful we can buy a 500 dollar scanner to listen to,i know i am..And most of the digital noise on the 996 i have learned is due to weak signal levels on the system i listen to but all systems are different,I don't get that much on the ky state police with the 996.
 
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kb9hgi

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timjude said:
.Glad i did i had to turn the digital gain all the way up in the hidden menu and the analog agc all the way down to -5 to get the volume level equal and it's now pleasent to listen to...


Where is the hidden menu? My audio is very low on digital but I don't get all the buurrrrp or what ever all get. I have to admit its quiet and clear audio but low have to crank the vol up.
 

N4DXX

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kb9hgi said:
Where is the hidden menu? My audio is very low on digital but I don't get all the buurrrrp or what ever all get. I have to admit its quiet and clear audio but low have to crank the vol up.
http://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/Uniden_Digital_AGC_Tweak_Procedures
My settings are best ref gain +5 digital and -5 on the analog agc adjustment works great for me.Good luck.I found the res time on my system P25 never seemed to make much of a difference so i left it alone at 0.And one other thing the 1.02 firmware has louder audio than version 1.03..Just a note.
 
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k9xyz

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Braaaaaappppp

The braaap noise with the 996 and 396 has nothing what-so-ever to do with weak signals.
I live a mile from the tower and get it all day long. I have traveled extensivley with my scanners and it is a digital decoding issue not an agc issue. You can adjust the gain and res but the OVERALL volume on the 996 is low output no matter what kind of system your listening to. I had 3 of them all at the same time. I used an amplified external speaker for that issue.
The braaaappp noise is a design issue and is related to digital decoding and on some systems you will just have to tolerate it until uniden fixes it. This is well documented and has been complained about since these scanners came out. Hopefully the new firmware release will finally fix this issue. As for your low volume get a good extrenal speaker an amplified one and you'll be set.
73
 

GTO_04

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My have had no volume variations at all between analog and digital systems on my 396, and I have not had to tweak my AGC settings. I have had the machine gunning before and sometimes after SAFE-T digital transmissions. The incidence of machine gunning does vary from day to day. This seems to be more of an issue on 3600 baud systems compared to 9600 baud systems. I don't think it is related to signal strength either as it happens at all distances from the towers.

GTO_04
 

k9xyz

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Common answer

I have read many posts over the years since the 396 and 996 came out regarding the machine gun, motorboat, brraaappp, whatever you want to call it. Many people have tried to contact uniden regarding this issue and the common anwer to it has been "weak signal strength". I used my 996 mobile as well as my 396 and drove all over central Indiana and areas in Ohio, Kentucky and Illinois and in many cases parked within view of the towers. The problem is with digital decoding because if you can see a tower and still braaaapppp how is that "weak signal" related. I know now its "overload" or too close to the tower....NO.
The previous post is correct, it does seem to be worse on some days than others, probably related to control channels.
The volume issue is only with the 996, it just has low volume, unrelated to any systems. The 396s volume is good but there were some reports of speakers being blown on that model.
I could not effectively use the 996 mobile using just the speaker on the scanner, it did require an extrenal speaker, but thats not uncommon for most radios mobile not just scanners.

Please dont misunderstand both these scanners are good. I did replace my 996s with GRE 600s and I have NEVER heard the braaappp not once on the 500 or the 600 and the audio is LOUD, I do not need extreral speakers anymore.
The 396 is a very cool radio, the size is nice the feature set excellent and the receiver given this units size is great. The 396 is more "portable" because of its size if you like to take a scanner on your person. In all my years in the hobby I have never been one to wear a scanner around on my belt, just never have done that.

If you love the hobby and just like scanners and radios in general you know there is NO perfect one, thats why its cool to have many different ones to enjoy!

73
 

N4DXX

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Design flaw

If you will read my post i said all systems we monitor are different,I only get the digital noise when signal's are very weak on the system i listen to.And i could argue the psr 600 has design issues with the poor front end and it is very poor sticks out like sore thumb on vhf.I am sure gre didn't want you to have to use the attenuator on all vhf frequency's but a lot of users must if they want to hear anything..
 

kb9hgi

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timjude said:
Did you get this figured out kb9hgi?

Yes I did I found the hidden menu and set the gain on analog and digital. Should both of these be turned on now in the menu?
 

Pursuit

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i had the same annoying problem til i changed the audio from all to digital. i no longer get any noise before a transmission. this worked for me on conventional digital and digital trunking systems
 

naSTI

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kb9hgi said:
Yes I did I found the hidden menu and set the gain on analog and digital. Should both of these be turned on now in the menu?


That's correct. In order to use the AGC tweaks, you must turn ON the AGC options for both analog an digital in the regular Settings menu.

Oh.. and for those hearing the BRAAP on the 996, if you HOLD on a Channel or TalkGroup, press (E"Yes") then "Set Audio Type" you can use the "Digital Only" option if that Channel is strictly P25 and it will eliminate that vile sound by 98%-99%. You'll have to do this for every channel/tgid, or can be done in UASD software.

Unfortunately, you can't do it that on the 396. :-(
 
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Star56

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Ir is not just the Uniden's that have this issue. I had a Pro96 that was useless with my P25 system...the motorboating ruined every listening session. I returned it and purchased a GRE500. Zero motorboating.
 
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