Having difficulty with Ashtabula County MARCS

[SCPD]

Hi all, I seem to having problems with the Ashtabula County MARCS system.

I run a Bearcat BC296D radio and I live in Cherry Valley. I use ARC250 software to setup my radio.

This site's database says the 2 channels to monitor are 867.0750 and 867.6125.

While I can hear some things, every conversation sounds broken, garbled and only a few words are legible.

I have loaded those 2 channels into a bank by themselves with the following settings...

Trunk - on
Delay time - 2
Beep alert - off
PL/DPL - none
Lock Out - off
Attenuator - off
Mode - NFM
Step 12.5

Trunk type - Motorola Type 2 - 800 MHz
I-call - on
End Code - detect
Status bit - on

There is a setting that asks about the control channel - I can select Plan 1,2,3 or 4. I have Off selected.

Does anyone have a good setup rnning for a BC296D/ 250 that can tell me what their settings are or what I may be doing wrong?

Thanks so much,

TomJD

 

[K8TEK]

What does your RSSI show? It sounds like you are experiencing packet loss.

 

[SCPD]

My RSSI indicator reads between 5-6 out of 6 bars for the MARCS towers.

Thanks!

 

[K8TEK]

How close to the tower are you? Your receiver could be desencing , in that case you need to turn the attenuator on.

 

[SCPD]

Thanks K8TEC, I will try that.

As of just a few minutes ago, I sent my mem file back to the radio using ARC250 Pro, and it is functioning much better now. I don't know what sending the file back to itself did, but reception is much better...

Thanks,

TomJD.