Pro-668 and Harris County, TX P25 reception ends

[Alpha168]

I am new to this forum and radio coms in general, so please bear with me. I have had this RadioShack PRO-668 for a couple of months, and when I purchased this thing right out of the box I gave it my zip code and was receiving all of the trunking frequencies under the sun. I am also using the Diamond antenna as well.

For about a week now, out of the blue this scanner is picking up nothing. It just sits in a perpetual scanning loop and the only thing that pops in is a conventional DPS channel and Tomball PD if I'm lucky.

I made no changes to the settings, it just stopped receiving. So, I brought up the software and updated everything...still nothing. I then tried to restore the default settings...nothing. I even tried to just scan ONE single talkgroup for HCSO in my district...still nothing. I went driving around with this thing scanning and yes...NOTHING.

My question is...whether this thing is just a POS that decided to take a dump, or is there some kind of new encryption issue that I am unaware of.

Again, I know virtually nothing about what is going on with this technology so I'm trying to understand the "science" behind the problem.

 

[troymail]

It's possible that something went bad with the radio and/or the antenna/antenna connector.

By default, if you were dealing with encryption, you'd hear indications of that.

Do you receive anything when you press the WEATHER button?

Another possibility - check which service types are enabled. See:
Easier to Read Pro-668/PSR800 Digital Scanner and EZ-Scan/iScan Software Manual types

Finally, I see some changes were made to a few sites in the Texas Wide Area Radio Network (TxWARN) Project 25 system including for the "Harris County East Simulcast" site:
Texas Wide Area Radio Network (TxWARN) Project 25 Trunking System, Various, Texas - Scanner Frequencies

That might be a factor also.

Folks in the Texas forum may be more able to help....but I'm still willing to try!

 

[Alpha168]

Hey thanks, yes the weather channel comes in perfectly fine, and it only seems to be trunked channels that I am having problems with. I intermittently receive some fire department transmissions but that's about it. The trunked stuff comes in scratchy and chopped if at all, and the "T" indicator flickers. It must just be a tuning issue so I'll keep messing around. It was just strange that everything was coming in from all directions, and then suddenly nothing at all.