Greeley 35th Ave Tower 3-026 Cutting Out

[ScannerSK]

For the past year the Greeley 35th Ave tower (3-026) has been chopping out chunks of the conversation from units transmitting in the field. Has anyone else noticed this? The dispatcher does not have a problem understanding the units however on both the PSR-500 and PRO-106 the amount of speech missing makes the sentences not understandable.

This problem is unrelated to the typical digital drop outs (due to low signal strength into the tower) and is only noticeable from the 35th Ave Tower (3-026). I assume this has something to do with how the signal is being transmitted from this specific tower.

I'm hoping someone may have found a fix in the settings for this issue.

Shawn - KB0LSW

 

[scanlist]

No it's not limited to the the 35th site. I hear this on the Bald Mtn site as well. It appears to occur with units in the field in the South Western parts of the county in the coverage area of the Fort Lupton 700 site.

I'm thinking the possibility is units talking in to the Lupton 700 site are coming across choppy on the 800 only sites.

 

[greenthumb]

My experience has been that units don't typically drop all the way out, but rather go significantly digital. If you're completely losing the conversation but dispatch can still hear them, I would guess that your scanner is either on the fringe of coverage, or is taking some interference. Try enabling the attenuator and see if things are any better. My experience has also been that the Uniden -XT series of scanners seem to have the tightest (relatively speaking) receivers on currently marketed trunked scanners and can tolerate more interference.

 

[ScannerSK]

I have ruled out the scanner going bad as it is affecting at least three units (PSR-500, PSR-600 & PRO-106). I have also ruled out local interference as the dispatcher never has chunks of voice chopped out only units in the field.

The issue is approximately 1/2 second long chunks (complete sudden drop outs) of audio from units in the field throughtout the conversation often back to back. This occurs when the units are solid into the repeater and when there are no signs of going digital.

I think scanlist is onto something. This problem does seem to have begun sometime shortly after the 700 MHz Fort Lupton repeater was put online. The problem does not affect Greeley Police units and does as scanlist mentioned seem to affect mainly if not entirely only units in Southern Weld (versus North Weld).

What makes me curious about this is the problem does not appear to be having an impact on professional two-way radios only on hobbyist's scanners. I could be wrong on this however I have not noticed other units in the field asking for a repeat of information the dispatcher copied however was broadcast out of the tower missing at least every other word due to this issue.

I was pondering whether a tweak to one of the Function Global (P25) settings may correct the problem however have not pursued this yet. I guess it depends on whether the audio encoding is at fault (which should affect professional units) or the decoder in our scanners is at fault? If professional radios are not experiencing this problem I would guess a tweak to the decoder in our scanners is in order.

Shawn - KB0LSW