Uniden 396T and Greater Austin p25 System

[samson512]

Anyone else using a 396T to monitor this system? I have been messing and tweaking with the p25 settings and can't find a good middle ground to get the best sound with no errors in decoding. I have tried AUTO, and have been through most settings in Manual . With the ATT on and off. Is there some secret to monitor this system given the nature of the simulcast freqs? Or is this as good as it gets? Anyone with a 396XT have better results?

 

[soncorn]

Is there some secret to monitor this system given the nature of the simulcast freqs?

You want to only receive the signal from one of the transmitters. So a directional antenna or simply finding a position in the house where it isn't receiving interfering signals might improve things.

 

[motorola_otaku]

It's not just you and it's not just the 396T - all scanners perform equally horrible on P25 simulcast systems. I rue the day when Houston makes the switch.. *grumble*

The only thing you can do to help is to use the lowest-gain antenna possible. If the stock duck doesn't work, use a paperclip. If you're close to a tower site, try it with no antenna at all. Seriously. The better the antenna works, the more sites it hears, and the front end of the scanner just can't deal with the minute timing differences in the multiple signals so it barfs. Like soncorn said, you want it to hear one tower site only as much as possible.

 

[samson512]

Thanks for the replies. I will continue trying to fine tune my reception issues. After reading the replies I tried a paperclip and even just a little piece of wire. The 396T is still getting competing signals because the audio decoding did not improve much at all. Hopefully Uniden will find some software tweaks or something to help us out, or is the 396T old news to them by now.

 

[josephdavis13]

Purchase this Radio Shack Stubby Antenna for Race Scanner for the Uniden 396T, it will improve your ability to receive.

Stubby Antenna for Race Scanner - RadioShack.com