BCD996 Novice User needs help....

[Bryce031]

A couple of months ago I purchsed the 996. WOW! I love this thing! I work about 30 miles away from the scanner as a firefighter. The system that we are on is a trunked UHF system (Burlington County, NJ). When I got my 996, I programmed it with all the frequencies I got from work and with some local conventionals and a couple of trunked systems. The local conventional and trunked systems worked like a charm with some reception issues here and there. I was a little frustrated due to the fact that I could not receive Burlington County's system. NOTE: I can receive their dispatch channel which is VHF. I purchased a dicone antenna and mounted it on my roof about 35-40 feet AGL - still I could not receive this system or other trunked systems in this 20-30 mile range. I took my scanner with me to work one day and had it in my office. The frequencies are accurate as it did work well there. I went on ebay and purchased a Realistic All Band Frequency Monitor Amplifier. Just hooked the darn thing up today, and now I get absolutely NOTHING over my 996!! I bought this thing to jump the reception of my local channels and break into the digital trunking systems that I couldn't receive prior and it did just the opposite. I am hoping there is something I can do in the programming software that will remedy my problem. Looking for ANY suggestions.

Thanks
BP

 

[tuttleje]

Make sure you have not inadvertently cut the attenuator "ON" by accident on the Burlington System. This could make your scanner deaf on that system.

Go to the Menu
Program System
Select your system
Edit site
Select site
go to Set Attenuator
Set if to "off"

See if that works.

 

[Bryce031]

Negative. The default setting is OFF for the ATT. This system does work when I take it to work with me in Burlington County.

 

[rhutch]

What else is between you their transmitting site? It's not just about distance, if there are hills, large buildings or others stuff between you and their transmitting site they will effect it.

 

[werinshades]

996 UHF Digital Issue?

Hey Bryce, i'm not sure if it's related, but I had a problem with my 996 on UHF Digital Trunking and it's currently at Uniden for a fix I hope. I'm about 3 blocks away from Midway Airport in Chicago, and they run a UHF Digital Trunking system which is fairly busy. About 20 Talkgroups are active, and I had them divided into two seperate groups. Group 1 was my primary and it was skipping some of the conversations. I naturally went through the whole process like you, and figured out the Trunking channel isn't being decoded properly or quick enough. I previously owned a Uniden 796D and was using that to trunk this system, which it was doing so flawlessly. So I pulled it out, set it up far enough away where they wouldn't interfere, and that's when I discovered how much my 996 was missing. So, I sent it back, along with another minor issue with hopes they will discover or be able to mimic the issue I was having. From what you say here, I don't think you should be having that much of a problem no matter where you are. I'm just wondering if the control channel isn't being decoded properly or quick enough to pick up the Talkgroups ? I'd be very interested for others to chime in here if they regularly monitor a UHF or UHF Digital system with their observations.