P25 Seems Better Outdoors
I had my PSR-800 with me today for a few hours running some errands and the reception on the P25 broadcasts was definitely much better than indoors yesterday. I would say that indoors maybe 30% of the traffic is good and 70% is garbled. However, outdoors it's about 70% good and 30% distorted...and that's with the scanner laying flat on the passenger seat with an Austin Condor antenna on it (inside the car, no antenna on the roof). Of the 30% garbled traffic, most of it seemed to be on the fire channels for some reason (maybe because a lot of those guys are using handhelds while the police are using their in-car radios for the most part)?
So, it's definitely better outdoors but it's still not as good as the old system (where a good 90% - 95% of the traffic is crystal clear).
Anyway, thanks for all the suggestions. I'll play around with the placement of the radio indoors...two feet from the window equals bad reception on anything P25 so maybe I'll stick it in a closet or something!