BCD325P2/BCD996P2: Drop Out Due to WX and PRI scanning

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saboken

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I know this issue has been mentioned I thought it was just having Priority Scanning on that was doing it but when I turned it off it got better but didn't go away until I turned the WX scan off! I just purchased a BCD996P2 for the S.A.M.E feature but the dropouts make the feature unusable. Is there a workaround for this? I have searched all day and might return it if I cant fix it $399. is a lot of money for something that cant do this in the background silently. I want to love this thing but so far it has been a mess trying to set it up In the Mountain region of SC with the Palmetto 800 system and Seneca being on NXDN a unscannable system.
Thanks for any help I am realy behind on times I never thought I would feel like a noob since I once ran a 100 node BBS and used to put crystals in scanners LOL, Im not that far behind LOL. :)
 

wx5uif

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The scanner only has one receiver. For it to monitor the WX for alerts along with scanning, it has to take a look at the WX channel every couple of seconds.
 

saboken

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HMMM i guess this goes for priority channels also? I haven't figured it out fully yet I hope there is a way to scan only a select bank of channels? this thing is a beast!
 

Voyager

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Assign Quick Keys to the various systems and you can disable the ones you don't want to scan, but still be able to re-enable them easily.
 

ofd8001

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HMMM i guess this goes for priority channels also? I haven't figured it out fully yet I hope there is a way to scan only a select bank of channels? this thing is a beast!

Yes - that's applicable to any type of priority scanning: weather, close call or priority frequency. As noted above, the scanner has only one receiver circuit and it can do only one thing at a time. So to check for priority anything, it has to stop listening to the active channel and then listen to the priority channel.

I haven't done much with weather priority recently. This day and age I get numerous alerts on my smart phone about impending bad weather. Plus if I'm actively scanning, there is usually some traffic about the weather.
 

saboken

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I haven't gotten to the Quick keys yet still reading decoding the owners manual I will figure it out one day.
 

saboken

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As far as phones giving alerts My phone does this also but I go camping in very remote areas that have limited to no Cell service.
I planned to take the Scanner with me. I just think for the Price point it should have the Processing power to check channels in the background in milliseconds as not to cause any detectable dropouts? I just thought by now it could do things so fast that it wouldn't cause any disruption in audio.
I guess I will have to get a dedicated Weather radio and a Extra Battery to power it at night. keeping things simple when off the grid is challenging. to bad it wasn't the all in one device I was hoping for. :(
 

MStep

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As far as phones giving alerts My phone does this also but I go camping in very remote areas that have limited to no Cell service.
I planned to take the Scanner with me. I just think for the Price point it should have the Processing power to check channels in the background in milliseconds as not to cause any detectable dropouts? I just thought by now it could do things so fast that it wouldn't cause any disruption in audio.
I guess I will have to get a dedicated Weather radio and a Extra Battery to power it at night. keeping things simple when off the grid is challenging. to bad it wasn't the all in one device I was hoping for. :(

Yes, a dedicated weather alert radio is always the best way to assure that you will receive WX alerts. As much as the scanners are very good at picking up these alerts, the can occasionally become "confused" by their programming and can miss weather alerts, unless you have them sitting on the WX channel exclusively. But then, of course, you give up all your scan and search functions.

Not sure about the 996, but if it is anything like the 536, regardless of the fact that we still get the "dropouts" associated with priority functions, the algorithms used in carrying out these functions is very good--- you get to use "regular" priority or "DND (Do No Disturb), which in fact does eliminate those drop-outs by only looking at your priority channels while the scanners are not locked on an active channel.

That's about the best the can be done short of having a second front-end on the radio specifically tuned to your priority channels--- most likely do-able, but very expensive.
 

saboken

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I decided not to use the Pri

It seems that with the power available to Electronic Co that this would be a possibility by now without any great cost the Router I just got Beta testing and was just announced at the 2016 CES has 3 radios in it and a feature Called MU-MIMO that can handle multiple simultaneous traffic without taking turns it cost $399.99.(Linksys EA9500 Max-Stream™ AC5400 Tri-Band Wi-Fi Router) I know its a router not a scanner but a Scanner with a Low power secondary radio for background scanning or a Muticore CPU that can switch back and forth fast enough not to be able to detect any drop outs.
Just a thought it seems like the scanner industry is slow to adopt new tech.
 

Voyager

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There are also many more routers made and sold than scanners, so they can purchase components specific to routers and get the cost down. Adding a second receiver to a scanner would likely add 50-75% to the cost.
 
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